Sunshine State Innovation Games 2027: Elementary Guidelines
Overview
Read and review the competition rules on the Innovation Games competition page.
Elementary Scratch Programming projects will be made using the Scratch computer programming platform. Scratch is a project of the Scratch Foundation, in collaboration with the Lifelong Kindergarten Group at the MIT Media Lab. It is available for free at https://scratch.mit.edu ⎋.
Are you or your students new to Scratch? Read this article for helpful tips on sharing Scratch projects: How to Share a Scratch Project for a Competition ⎋. This process will be required for final project submission.
This year’s project prompt is the following:
Create an original game or story that explores how Earth’s systems work together, how our planet is changing, or how we are exploring the vastness of space. Your project could be about:
- how an ecosystem or habitat stays balanced
- how an extreme weather event or natural hazard forms and changes the land
- how a specific planet, moon, or star behaves in our universe
- how humans use technology to protect and preserve Earth’s resources
- or how another earth or space science topic (like the rock cycle, the water cycle, ocean currents, fossil layers, or rocket science) works in nature.
Use your code to bring the science of the Earth and space to life!
Registration & Project Submission
Teachers/coaches must register for the competition and create accounts for their student teams. Student accounts will be used for final project submission. Read the full instructions on Innovation Games competition page.
Each school may enter a maximum of three teams into the Scratch competition. Schools are encouraged to host their own competitions to allow more students to compete at the school level. Then, the top three teams from that school would be entered into the final competition.
Judging
This year’s project prompt is the following:
Create an original game or story that explores how Earth’s systems work together, how our planet is changing, or how we are exploring the vastness of space. Your project could be about:
- how an ecosystem or habitat stays balanced
- how an extreme weather event or natural hazard forms and changes the land
- how a specific planet, moon, or star behaves in our universe
- how humans use technology to protect and preserve Earth’s resources
- or how another earth or space science topic (like the rock cycle, the water cycle, ocean currents, fossil layers, or rocket science) works in nature.
Use your code to bring the science of the Earth and space to life!
Scratch Rubric & Scoring
| Category | Score |
|---|---|
| Content (__/10) | |
| Engagement (__/10) | |
| Artwork & Digital Media (__/ 10) | |
| Coding / CS Development (__/ 10) | |
| Completeness & Testing (__/ 10) |
| Category | Description |
|---|---|
| Content | Projects that feature a well-developed response to the prompt will earn higher scores in this category. Projects that only loosely fit the prompt will earn lower scores. |
| Engagement | Projects that are highly interactive and incorporate multiple scenes will earn higher scores in this category. Projects that are shorter or have limited opportunities for user interaction will earn lower scores. |
| Artwork & Digital Media | Projects that feature detailed, creative, appealing, and purposeful use of art and sounds will earn higher scores in this category. Projects with limited animation, art, and sounds will earn lower scores in this category. |
| Coding / CS Development | Projects that demonstrate advanced knowledge of programming concepts, use complex problem-solving, and utilize code comments will earn higher scores in this category. Projects with simpler code will earn lower scores. |
| Completeness & Testing | Projects that lack major errors or bugs, include clear, thoughtful instructions, and are well-tested will earn higher scores in this category. Projects that have many errors, bugs or incomplete code will earn lower scores. |