Apple recently announced the arrival of new resources “Program is for everyone”, a way to bring teachers and children closer to the design and development of applications. In particular, the Swift Student Challenge it offered many male and female students the opportunity to show their creativity and acquire useful career skills. Moreover, from 2020, those who participate in the challenge become part of a global community of developers who use Swift, the same language used in the professional world, to create a new generation of revolutionary apps. The next challenge will start in February 2024 and will include a new category that will recognize the work of 50 particularly deserving Distinguished Winners.
Going into the details of the news, to support the teaching of Swift Playgrounds, four “Coding is for everyone” projects have been introduced, which will provide resources to help students in order to develop basic skills while creating apps. These projects can be integrated into any subject and are perfect for use in the classroom or coding clubs.
They are a way to bring classes closer to SwiftUI, an innovative way to create user interfaces with very little code, and use the latest technologies for app development in Swift Playgrounds. As they write code, boys and girls can see how the app changes with real-time preview. The four new projects available from today are:
- Design a simple app: Classes can create an app prototype in Keynote to learn the basics of app design, practice rapid prototyping, and gather feedback, following the same procedures as those who develop apps for a living.
- Create with stacks and shapes: Classes can take their first steps in app development with Swift Playgrounds and program a self-portrait or artwork with SwiftUI to learn the basics of interface design.
- Create custom shapes: Classes can take an app interface to the next level by designing shapes, learning to plot coordinates, and programming custom shapes with SwiftUI and the About Me sample app in Swift Playgrounds.
- Design an app icon: classes can learn and practice app design principles to create a memorable app icon that communicates an idea, practice rapid prototyping, gather feedback, and upload the icon to Swift Playground to become part of of an app.
Finally, in February 2024, male and female students will have 3 weeks to submit their projects for the Swift Student Challenge.
To be notified when the Challenge begins, just sign up on developer.apple.com. Out of 350 total winners, 50 will be honored as Distinguished Winners and will be invited to Apple headquarters in Cupertino, California next summer to get to know each other and meet the Apple team. Each winner will receive a one-year membership in the Apple Developer Program, which allows them to submit apps to the App Store and receive support from Apple.
