Tynker’s Popular Summer Code Jam for Kids is back with over $8,000 in Prizes!

Tynker, the world’s leading K-12 creative coding platform, today announced the return of its annual Tynker Summer Code Jam. This highly popular coding competition lets kids ages 6 to 15 put their coding skills to the test as they complete challenges for a chance to win over $8,000 in cash and gift card prizes. Registration for the 2021 Summer Code Jam is free and open to anyone who would like to participate.

Beginning June 28, 2021 and running for six weeks, the Tynker Summer Code Jam introduces a new coding challenge every week using Tynker’s award-winning programming platform. This year’s theme is The Great Outdoors giving kids a chance to explore nature, sports, animals and the wild while using animation, musical composition, and Minecraft modding to solve various challenges. These challenges build upon participants’ creative and analytical skills and reinforce academic skills in math, geometry and reading. Last summer, kids submitted over 30,000 entries to the Summer Code Jam and this year’s Great Outdoors Code Jam is looking to be even bigger.

“Summer is a perfect time for students to practice coding to maintain important skills like creativity, problem-solving and critical thinking while away from school. Plus, it's a lot of fun!” said Srinivas Mandyam, co-founder and CTO of Tynker. “The chance to be creative, share projects with a global community in a safe way, and win prizes is exciting, but kids mainly look forward to these coding competitions so they can express their boundless creativity.”

Anyone with a Tynker account can participate in the 2021 Summer Code Jam using the Tynker iPad app or an internet-connected computer, with most participants falling in the 6-15 year old age range. This year, Grand Prize winners will be awarded $2,000 USD for First Place, $1,000 USD for Second Place, and $500 USD for Runner Up. Grand Prize winners must complete all six weekly challenges. In addition to the top 3 Grand Prize winners, Tynker will award $200 USD to the top weekly challenge winner in cash or a gift card.

Each week during the competition, an additional 9 project winners will receive a $50 USD gift card or cash prize based on their project’s creativity, originality, use of coding and theme development . Any available challenge may be completed and submitted for voting until August 8, 2020 at 11:59 p.m. PDT. All participants will receive Tynker Summer Code Jam participation certificates.

Parents of participants will receive an email when new projects are added at the beginning of each week, and kids will be notified via the Tynker website. Kids with an existing Tynker account can sign up for the Summer Code Jam; all others can sign up for free at www.tynker.com. To learn more, please go to https://www.tynker.com/play/code-jam/

About Tynker

Tynker is the world’s leading K-12 creative coding platform, enabling students of all ages to develop the coding skills to design and power animations, games, music, robots and drones, smart devices, virtual worlds like Minecraft, and more. The company’s award-winning platform helps kids engage at home, school, and on the go, while developing critical thinking, problem-solving, and programming skills to help them be successful today and tomorrow. Tynker’s highly successful coding curriculum has been used by one in three U.S. K-8 schools, 90,000 schools globally, and over 60 million kids across 150 countries. Tynker’s partners include some of the world’s most respected brands, including Apple, BBC Learning, Google, Microsoft, Mattel, PBS, Lego, NASA, and more. Tynker is accessible from any computer with an Internet browser, as well as via the Tynker and Tynker Junior mobile apps, and offers both free and paid subscription options. For more information, visit http://www.tynker.com.