Subj : Kiwi student named among Apple's coding comp winners
To   : All
From : News
Date : Fri Apr 26 2024 01:07 pm

A 15-year-old tech whizz from Auckland has been named as the sole Kiwi among
the 2024 winners of Apple's annual coding challenge for student developers.


Westlake Boys High School student Alex Liang told 1News he spent three months
developing his entry - an educational astronomy app "more like a game"
designed to interactively teach children about the order of the planets.


"For me it's a bit more than an app. I run a lot of groups here at the
Auckland Astronomical Society so I want to inspire more young people [to get]
into astronomy and possibly coding too."


Every year, as part of its Worldwide Developers Conference, Apple issued a
challenge to students across the globe to create an original app playground
using the Swift coding language.


"My dad was showing me Apple's Worldwide Developers Conference. I thought,
'maybe one day I could win something like that?' Which inspired me to start
coding, and then I found out there was a student competition," he said.


Liang said he dedicated three or four hours every day to work on the entry,
and said working out the errors in coding can be "challenging".

"Every three lines I wrote, there [was] a bug, which was really annoying."


He said his mum hung motivational posters on his wall saying "no bugs today"
and "learning so easy" to motivate his efforts.


"Coding at first, it sucks, when you see a huge line of code and think 'what
on earth is that?' It will be painful at the start, but as you go up more and
more, like a staircase, your level of understanding will grow. And that's
part of the learning, you know? It's a challenge."

Liang is now forming a plan with Auckland's Stardome Observatory and
Planetarium to gift the app for use in its educational programmes.


"I think [the app] could potentially inspire even more people to get an
interest in astronomy and for people to appreciate the beauty of space and
science."


"The most important thing I took away is really about doing things you like
doing. That's why you're good at it and that's why I could win such an
ambitious challenge. If you can dream it, you can do it."


A match written in the stars
Stardome Observatory and Planetarium chief executive Victoria Travers said
she was delighted by the prospect of being gifted the app, which she
described as "absolutely incredible".


"The user interface is so simple, it's really elegant and I can't believe he
did the whole thing himself at just 15 years old. But just his passion for it
is so incredible," she said.


Travers said she felt privileged to inspire children and adults alike to love
space, saying Alex's passion for astronomy was sparked at Stardome when he
was just eight years old.


"The space industry is really taking off and we in New Zealand are a really
legitimate player, but if we're going to have that continue, we need to have
these young minds coming in.

"And also these young minds coming in and seeing that there is a career path
available in this and that it is legitimate, and its lucrative and its really
really exciting."


She said Alex, who has achieved so much already at a young age, was going to
be "really inspiring for other kids coming through and other adults as well".

"He said one of the biggest thrills is that he wants to give back and give
[the app] to us so that we can hopefully use it with our tamariki and with
our education programmes and also with the public.


"He's just incredibly inspiring."

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