8 Best Coding Competitions for Middle School Students
What are coding competitions?
Coding competitions are competitive events where students, either in groups or individually, can showcase their programming skills. Coding competitions can vastly differ in difficulty levels; however, each contest expects you to have good theoretical knowledge about coding, making it difficult for complete beginners. Moreover, coding competitions tend to be highly competitive, so being a beginner will pose more of a challenge for you.
If you are a beginner, however, don’t be dissuaded from participating in coding competitions, as they can still be a great way to learn and up skill. There are many benefits to participating in coding competitions, as they foster critical thinking, teamwork, and problem-solving skills. Additionally, your participation in such competitions can help you gain hands-on experience which can prove to be valuable if you’re interested in pursuing computer science.
How did we select and rank these competitions?
We have tried to pick the best coding competitions for middle school students and have selected ranked them according to the following criteria:
- We looked at how prestigious these competitions are through their credibility, their complexity, and the problems given in the competitions.
- We looked at the size of these competitions, believing that larger competitions are usually better known, run, and have more resources for you to learn.
- We also looked at the accessibility of these competitions – whether there are any cost barriers, and who the competition is open to.
Competitions with levels tagged as ‘beginner-friendly to intermediate’ indicate that it is necessary to have fundamental programming language proficiency, while ‘Intermediate’ or ‘Intermediate to Advanced’ indicates some degree of specialty needed. If a competition is listed as ‘Advanced,’ it could be a highly specialized or highly competitive tournament.
1. American Computer Science League (ACSL)
Location: Virtual
Cost: No Cost
Eligibility: Must be an elementary, middle, or high school student. Please check if your school has registered for the competition.
Prize: Certificates and cash prizes (amount not disclosed).
Coding Experience Required: Beginner - Advanced
Prestige: Highly prestigious
Registration + Submission Deadline:
- Contest 1: available Nov. 1, 2023; closes Sunday January 14, 2024 @ 11:59pm EST
- Contest 2: available Jan. 2, 2024; closes Sunday March 3, 2024 @ 11:59pm EST
- Contest 3: available Feb. 5, 2024; closes Sunday April 7, 2024 @ 11:59pm EDT
- Contest 4: available March 11, 2024; closes Sunday May 12, 2024 @ 11:59pm EDT
ACSL organizes computer programming and computer science contests for K-12 schools, organizations, and local groups. ACSL offers multiple divisions, and each challenge tests students in various age groups and abilities. As a middle school student, you will be able to participate in the Junior and Intermediate divisions!
Each season is divided into four contests, testing students on fundamental concepts in computer science, ranging from number systems to boolean algebra to digital electronics. In the upper divisions, each contest also includes a problem to solve by programming using Python, C++, or Java.
To make the most of this competition and learn everything there is to know, check out this ultimate guide to the American Computer Science League!
Location: Virtual
Cost: No Cost
Eligibility: Must be between 13-18 years old
Prize: Certificates and cash prizes (amount not disclosed).
Coding Experience Required: Beginner - Advanced
Prestige: Highly prestigious
Registration + Submission Deadline: To be announced for 2024. The registration date for 2023 was January 11th and the submission deadline was May 15th, 2023.
Imagine Cup is a competition organized by Microsoft where students between the ages of 13 and 18 can use technology to solve some of the world’s biggest challenges. In the competition, you and your team will create a project to develop an original concept addressing the Microsoft AI for Good Initiatives!
Apart from the competition itself, Imagine Cup Junior aims to introduce students to concepts in AI, machine learning and cybersecurity through their deep learning modules, where they will receive 6 sets of in-depth content.
Previous winners of Imagine Cup Junior have created AI- driven interactive applications promoting accessibility for chemistry laboratory equipment using motion and AR, or a fact-checking browser to combat mis and dis-information! You can view the winners for 2023 and their projects here! If you are interested in taking part in the competition, check out this blog on how to win the Microsoft Image Cup.
3. Congressional App Challenge
Location: Virtual
Cost: No Cost
Eligibility: Must be a middle or high school student in a participating congressional district and must also be a resident of such district. You can view the participating districts here! Teams may have up to 4 members.
Prize: Winning apps are eligible to be displayed in the U.S. Capitol Building and featured on the House of Representatives website. Winners are also invited to attend a reception on Capitol Hill and may be awarded additional sponsor prizes.
Coding Experience Required: Intermediate
Prestige: Highly prestigious
Registration + Submission Deadline: Open now for 2023. Register here.
Competition dates: Competition deadline is November 1st, 2023
This district-wide contest is hosted by members of the U.S. House of Representatives. The idea of the Congressional App Challenge is to encourage students to problem-solve real-world challenges through coding. In this competition, you will have to develop an app (through coding) that addresses a real-world issue. Apart from commonly used programming languages, it is beneficial to brush up on different app development platforms like XCode or Kotlin. If you are keen on taking part in this competition, here is a guide on how to win the congressional app challenge!
Location: Virtual
Cost: No Cost
Eligibility: Must be enrolled in any educational organization. Open to students who are 7 and above.
Coding Experience Required: Beginner
Prestige: Prestigious
Registration + Submission Deadline: February - May (tentatively, based on previous years)
Competition dates: September (tentatively, based on previous years)
The Scratch Olympiad is a coding competition centered around Scratch, a visual programming language. In the event, you will have to design a Scratch project based on the themes (you can view the themes for 2023 here). The themes are segregated by age and if you are in middle school, you can expect to create projects on themes such as ‘know-all’ and ‘games’.
There are two disciplines for the Scratch Olympiad, Scratch (which involves creative programming on MIT Scratch), and Robbo Scratch, which involves creative programming on RobboScratch using ROBBO mobile robots and ROBBO digital labs.
The competition is held in 2 stages - the national selection stage, which is hosted by the national operators of the selection stage in your respective country. Winners from the national selection stage will qualify for the final stage where your project will compete with participants from 35 countries!
5. HPE CodeWars
Location: TBA, but can also be competed in remotely
Cost: No costs associated – apart from travel expenses to in-person competition.
Eligibility: Students between the ages 13 through 18. Teams of the size of 2 to 3 people and an adult sponsor. Sponsors can be sponsors to a max of three teams.
Coding Experience Required: Beginner - Advanced
Prestige: Reputable
Prize: There is a prize pool for raffle winners, and an award.
Registration + Submission Deadline: Registration opens a month before the competition, and closes two weeks before the start date.
Competition dates: March 2nd, 2024
HPE CodeWars is a coding competition for middle and high school students in which a team of 3 students will have 3 hours to solve 30 problems that get rapidly more difficult. The programming languages used in the previous year’s competition were C, C++, Java, and Python 3. It might also be worthwhile to practice your skills in not just problem solving and data structures, but also competitive coding techniques like two-pointer technique, binary search and other optimization methods to improve algorithm efficiency. Check out this ultimate guide to HPE CodeWars to learn more about the competition!
6. FIRST Lego League Robotics Competition
Location: Competitions held in most states. You can look for teams and events here!
Cost: New FIRST LEGO League Challenge teams can expect to pay approximately $1000 for team registration, the Challenge Set, and a reusable robot kit of parts.
Eligibility: Students between the ages of 9-14 (4-8th Grade). 2-10 members per team, with 2 adult coaches.
Prize: Scholarships are awarded to the top scorers.
Coding Experience Required: Advanced
Prestige: Highly prestigious
Registration + Submission Deadline: Mid-May is the deadline for registrations, and November and June (of the next year) are the competition/submission dates (based on previous years)
The First LEGO League Challenge allows you to build teams to engage in research, problem-solving, coding and engineering – building and programming a LEGO robot that navigates the missions of a robot game. As part of Challenge, teams also participate in a research project to identify and solve a relevant real-world problem. In 2023-2024, the MASTERPIECE challenge asks students around the world to find innovative ways to communicate art around the globe!
7. Technovation Coding Competition for Girls
Location: Virtual
Cost: No Cost
Eligibility: Must identify as female, translate, nonbinary or gender nonconforming. All participants must be between 8-18 years old. Teams should be composed of 105 students. You can only join 1 team.
Prize: Awards of up to $30,000 are available in cash and prizes.
Coding Experience Required: Beginner
Prestige: Reputable
Registration + Submission Deadline: TBA, but registration dates for the 2023-2024 season will be open in October.
Competition Dates: April 18th, 2024 (tentative, based on previous years)
Every year, girls across the globe step up to solve problems in their community with technology through the Technovation Girls competition. More than 39,000 girls from over 100 countries have created apps to solve community problems.
In this competition, you will work in a team to identify a local problem in your community and develop a solution that brings technology to life in an immediate, tangible way. With the help of volunteer mentors, you will then be connected to a local chapter or club ambassador, where you will work on this app. Technovation prioritizes implementing the app and so they connect you with local community leaders in order to bring your app to life.
Location: Virtual
Cost: There is a registration fee of $290 per team. Each team consists of 6 students.
Eligibility: Must be between grades 6-9 for Junior division and 7-12 for the Pro division.
Coding Experience Required: Beginner - Intermediate
Prestige: Reputable
Registration + Submission Deadline: Based on league season. There are two seasons - the spring league and the fall league.
CoderZ League is a virtual competition where teams complete a series of activities called missions and challenges, in which they program a robot in a virtual simulation. The goal of every team is to earn the most points.
As a middle schooler, you will participate in the junior division, competing with teams across grades 6-9. However, if you have experience in Cyber Robotics 102 or are upper middle school competition alumni, you can opt for the pro division which is open for students from grades 7-12!
In the Junior division, you will make use of LEGO EV3 robots and will use Blockly (a virtual code-editor). In the Pro Division, you will use Ruby (a CodeZ Virtual Robot) and challenges are available in both Blockly and Python!
To prepare for these competitions, you should look at the Veritas AI Programs!
Veritas AI is founded and run by Harvard graduate students. Students get the opportunity to learn the fundamentals of AI and computer science through hands-on, real-world projects. You can also work 1-1 with a mentor to build unique, personalized projects at the intersection of AI and CS. You can apply for the programs here.
Image Source: American Computer Science League (ACSL) Logo