When libraries (and the majority of the world) shut down last spring due to the COVID-19 pandemic, it seemed only natural to transfer our love of organizing coding competitions and special events for youth to the virtual world. So we put our heads together and came up with a summer event: The Great Fiero Code Challenge 2020. We created some special projects for our coders around the world, and gave them a chance to win cool prizes, such as codeable robots and drones, Makey Makeys and Raspberry Pis. 

The event was a huge success! We had tons of kids participating, growing and stretching their coding skills throughout the summer. In particular, we found the event did a really good job at re-engaging coders who hadn’t logged on in a while, and an even better job at bringing in new coders for the first time.

Coming out of that amazing experience, we decided to add these types of special events to our standard services for all our partner libraries. We are now offering special coding competitions for youth worldwide once a quarter. Our next one runs from now until January, 31, 2021, and the theme is “My Holiday Robot.”

The feedback from libraries has been outstanding. Our partner libraries love that they have something fun and exciting to talk about with patrons every couple of months. They love seeing new users come in, and current users engage with the program. Most of all, they love that Fiero does the heavy lifting, and they just help us get the word out. 

With our learn-to-code software digital resource, training and support for code clubs, and now regular coding competitions, we’re helping libraries engage in the coding movement at the highest level.