My Atal Tinkering Labs teacher at Apeejay got me interested in bots: Parth Khurana

Passionate about coding, Chaitanya Verma, a student of class 6 from Apeejay, Pitampura, is participating in the ongoing Code-a-thon 2021, a coding Olympiad. It was his school that encouraged him to take up the training sessions that are part of the event. Meanwhile, Parth Khurana from class 8 chose to participate in the event for the second time in a row, after winning the competition last year. In an interview, the budding coders talk about their love for coding, their plans to design new products and more. Excerpts:

Tell us about your experience at Code-a-thon.

Parth: I got to know about the event online and thereafter enrolled myself. This is my second year at Code-a-thon. I participated last year as well and was declared the winner for designing a website. This year, I am designing a game.

Chaitanya: My school told me about the competition so that is how I participated.I started preparing in October with the help of the tutorial videos on the Code-a-thon website.

What website/game did you develop?

Parth: Last year, I designed a science example website for class 6-8 with NCERT solutions. This year, I am working on a game in Python. The game has four players, and each has to put coins in a pocket, much like a carrom.

At what age did you learn coding? What got you interested?

Parth: I started coding at the age of 13. My Atal Tinkering Labs (ATL) teacher at Apeejay showed me some robots in class, which really intrigued me and piqued my interest in coding. I have joined some online courses on coding languages and have been really enjoying the whole process.

Chaitanya: My mother introduced me to coding in the third standard. She began with block coding and then taught me JavaScript. I do coding on weekends after completing my academic commitments during the week; so far, I have been balancing the two well. I find coding really interesting because you can make so many different web pages and games with it. 

I have also started a YouTube channel this year where I share coding lessons.

What do you aim to design in future?

Chaitanya: I hope to design my own website made out of AI like a talking bot. I also want to develop games.

How supportive has your school been?

Parth: All my classmates and teachers were happy and congratulated me.

Chaitanya: My school also started coding lessons in our computer classes from this academic session so that has been helpful.

How did your parents react?

Parth: My parents are very happy and supportive, and they have been encouraging me.

Chaitanya: My parents have been extremely supportive. Thanks to my mother, I got to learn the basics of coding; she also taught me about Virtual Reality (VR).