Yesterday the regional winners of the Minecraft School Hackathon were announced! As part of a pilot initiative, students from different schools in Boden municipality competed. The students were given the task of creating “Mineköping 2071” in Minecraft and a total of 2000 students from Norrbotten, Västerbotten, Västernorrland and Stockholm participated.
One of the aims of the school hackathon has been for students to feel involved in social issues and at the same time learn more about innovation, democracy and entrepreneurship. For the past eight weeks, students in Year 6 have been given a class assignment to build a shared world in Minecraft Education. At the end of these weeks, students presented their work to the class and then democratically voted for a group to represent them today at the regional school hackathon. On Monday, the finalists in each class were given the task of creating a new city.
The city, called Mineköping, is set in the year 2071. Mineköping is a city with social and sustainable energy supply, food supply and meeting places. How this will look and work, well, the students have had to shape and think of it all by themselves!
The finalists and the jury for the regional final, based at Teknikens Hus, have digitally received the students’ entries and selected a winner. The prize for the winners will be a visit for the whole class to Boden Business Park where they will meet game developers and learn more about visualisation and gamification. The finalists will also be on site at the Boden Game Camp Incubator when they later compete in the national finals.
Emil Sandberg, Business Developer at Boden Game Camp/Boden Business Park, was a member of the jury.
– The students have demonstrated and exceeded my expectations of the technical knowledge combined with the visual. We have seen many great solutions for a more sustainable society. It is of utmost importance that this activity continues in education as it allows combining several subjects into one and performing learning through games. Today, we have great access to digital tools that accelerate pedagogy and make school subjects more tangible, Boden should be at the forefront and make use of this.
After a challenging deliberation for the jury, Svartbjörnsbyns Skola grade 6 in Norrbotten was chosen as the winner. The students representing the class are Thor Winblad von Walter, Erik Karlsson and Eliot Ahlström. The jury’s motivation was:
– Well-motivated detailed solutions as a whole were presented in a convincing way where you really believe in your solutions and sell them. Has described and justified each solution. Positive that they have thought about the future of the meeting place and with social and innovative solutions. Dragon boats and well, detailed energy solutions.
Second place went to Mårängskolan 6C and third place to Mårängskolan 6A. The Skolhackathon concept has been developed by Technichus – Härnösand, Ung Företagsamhet Västerbotten and Bron Innovation. The regional final in Norrbotten was organised by Ung Företagsamhet Norrbotten and Teknikens Hus in cooperation with Boden Business Park, which was also the main sponsor. Now we’re waiting for the big regional final where the counties are pitted against each other!
For questions and concerns regarding the Skolhackathon:
Ewa Andersson, ewa.andersson@teknikenshus.se, 072-644 15 03
Carolina Heimdahl, carolina.heimdahl@ungforetagsamhet.se, 070-214 39 02
Emil Sandberg, emil@bodenbusinesspark.se, 070-280 40 92
Watch the film here
