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Innovation Games 2025: 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 about something that has changed or improved because of innovation. Your project could be about:

• how a place has changed
• how an everyday tool, toy, or other device has changed
• how communication has changed
• how helping the planet has changed
• or how another industry (like fashion, aviation, aerospace, travel, entertainment, education, food or farming, etc.) has changed over time though innovation.

For the topic you choose, show how new ideas and inventions have made it look or work the way it does today!

Important for Elementary Level Competition: Each school will be allowed to bring a maximum of 10 teams to the competition, but only 3 teams per school will be permitted to officially submit their projects and be featured on stage. Read more about the judging process and rubric in the “Judging” section.

To participate in the coding competition, coaches must complete the three steps below.

Step 1: Register for Program Access with Codecraft

1. To create a Codecraft account, coaches will visit CodecraftWorks.com ⎋ and click the gold-colored “Login” button on the left side of the site. If you are viewing this page on a mobile device, the button may appear at the top of the page instead. Selecting this button will take you to the login page. If you have already created an account, you can skip this step.

2. Coaches must confirm their email address, school, and students’ grade level in this form: Innovation Games Coding: Program Registration ⎋. Codecraft Works will be in touch ASAP with a link and code to a custom program. This program is where coaches and students will access competition resources and project submission.

Step 2: Create & Distribute Student Accounts

1. Once coaches have received their program information, coaches will create student accounts that have usernames and passwords. Coaches will also be able to reset student passwords. To create student accounts, follow these instructions: How to Create Student Accounts with Passwords ⎋.

2. Coaches will distribute usernames and passwords to their students and be equipped to handle any password resets. To change a student’s password or display name, follow these instructions: How to Manage Student Accounts with Passwords ⎋.

Login Instructions

Students can log in by entering their program’s short code on the main login page ⎋ or by clicking the “Student Login” button on their program page. For more detailed instructions, view this page: How to Log in to Student Accounts With Passwords ⎋.

Coaches will continue to log in with their email addresses on the main login page ⎋.

Step 3: Submit Students’ Projects

1. Students must log into the accounts created for them, as described in Step 2.

2. When they log in, students will be directed to their coach’s program page. Beginning on October 27, 2025, they will see the “Submit CCPC Project” button on that page. Click on this button and fill in the requested information to submit the project. Again, students must be logged into their accounts to see this button. Competition entries must be submitted through the coach’s program page NO LATER​ than 4 pm on November 3, 2025.

3. All students must submit projects using their own Codecraft accounts. It is recommended that coaches assist elementary students with the submission process. However, coaches should not be logged into the Codecraft platform for project submission; each student’s account should be used to submit their own project.

   The submission form will ask for a link to the student’s project on Scratch. Before they copy the project’s URL and paste it into the form, the student will need to “Share” the project on Scratch. Judges cannot view a project if it is not shared. For help sharing a student’s project, refer to this article.

   Scratch users must confirm their email addresses before they can share their projects. If your student is unable to share their project, check that they have confirmed their email address in their Account Settings at scratch.mit.edu/accounts/settings/ ⎋

Judging

This year’s project prompt is the following:

Create an original game or story about something that has changed or improved because of innovation. Your project could be about:

• how a place has changed
• how an everyday tool, toy, or other device has changed
• how communication has changed
• how helping the planet has changed
• or how another industry (like fashion, aviation, aerospace, travel, entertainment, education, food or farming, etc.) has changed over time though innovation.

For the topic you choose, show how new ideas and inventions have made it look or work the way it does today!

Elementary students will first compete at the school level. Schools may have an unlimited number of teams create Scratch projects and compete within their school, but only 10 teams per school may attend the competition on the day-of. Coaches and/or their schools will determine their first, second and third place winners. We recommend using our Scratch rubric, provided below. Each school’s top three teams will submit their projects on the Codecraft site for final ranking and feedback. These three teams will also be invited to present their projects onstage at the competition.

Each entry submitted will be reviewed by a panel of at least two judges and scored for its content, engagement, use of digital media, code, originality, and completeness. The score sheets below will be used by the Judges during the competition.

The decisions of the judging panel are final and no correspondence will be entered into. The scorecard sample below will be online as a digital form and made available to each judge for use as they review the projects.

Scratch Rubric & Scoring

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 immersive, interactive, and likely to attract repeat users 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 / Computer Science (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 more basic or non-functional code will earn lower scores.

Originality: Projects that are original in concept and implementation will earn higher scores in this category. Projects that take heavy inspiration from popular media without adding creative or personal touches will earn lower scores.

Completeness & Testing / Quality Assurance (QA): 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 or bugs will earn lower scores.