Today was the awards ceremony for the 2nd National Elementary and Junior High School Programming Contest. This year’s theme was “I Wish There Was Something Like This.” The presentations and Q&A sessions by
the winners—ranging from first-grade elementary students to second-year junior high students—were brimming with the passion they wanted to convey. I was particularly impressed by the children who kept repeating words like “refinement” and “improvement” and seemed willing to keep explaining their ideas forever.
Every entry was a masterpiece—I found myself thinking that any one of them deserved the Grand Prize—but the results were…!!!

The Grand Prize and Minister of Internal Affairs and Communications Award went to “My Doraemon.” This maze-exploration program was created by focusing on the relationship between slime molds and artificial intelligence. Could this be the beginning of “My Doraemon”? I look forward to seeing what the future holds for this fifth-grade boy, who is interested in both the natural sciences and computer science.

The runners-up were “naratica” and “Kirakira Music Box.”
“naratica” is software that uses morphological analysis to analyze the emotional fluctuations of characters, thereby deriving the rules for hit movies and anime and providing support for screenplay creation.It was created by a second-year middle school girl who also demonstrated initiative by visiting director Hayao Miyazaki and a professor at Tokyo Institute of Technology.
“Kirakira Music Box” is a game where players complete a song by pressing buttons precisely in time with the lights.After more than half a year of continuous improvements—including changes to sound tones, the introduction of a song selection system, and the addition of a speed selection feature—it is now in Version 4. If you clear the game without any mistakes, the white, box-shaped game console lights up in a colorful display reminiscent of fireworks. Her comments—“I wanted to play a game that combines light and sound, but nothing like that existed, so I made it myself” and “I’ve been refining it as more and more people have played it”—are truly impressive.

The Excellence Awards went to “Your Virtual Assistant Robot ‘NOYBO’” in the Lower Elementary Division, “The Tsundere Piggy Bank” in the Middle School Division, and “One Poem at a Time” in the Upper Elementary Division.
As its name suggests, “NOYBO” is a virtual robot designed to support you. It tells you the times of your extracurricular activities and provides the results of your calculations.The key feature of this project, modeled after Siri, is that it speaks using voice commands. Every word was recorded individually, and the virtual robot speaks by combining them. Challenges included the robot mispronouncing the sound “ju” as “ji” or “yu,” and reading numbers sequentially from left to right without considering place value.They passionately explained how they solved these issues. Further functional expansions are also possible.
The “Tsundere Piggy Bank” is a piggy bank designed to encourage saving. It identifies the size of the coins inserted, automatically sorts them, and calculates the savings balance. It gets angry when no money is put in, and smiles when money is deposited regularly. Two people living far apart teamed up and used Facebook to co-develop it.Unfortunately, the two have not yet adopted an allowance system themselves and have not tested it personally.
“Kai-ichi-ku” is a game where players must move a ball to prevent it from being pushed out while 3D characters rotate and rise. Playing this game makes learning the Hyakunin Isshu fun. An English version is also available, contributing to the spread of the Hyakunin Isshu overseas.

The winning entries were “Dad-Wake-Up Robot,” “Goldfish Guardian,” and “Daily Check App.” As its name suggests, the
“Dad-Wake-Up Robot” is a robot designed to wake up dads who have a hard time getting out of bed. It was created by the youngest contestant, a first-grade boy. He made repeated improvements to ensure the robot would reach his dad and land a solid chop.But the cute twist is that Dad still doesn’t wake up.
“Goldfish Guardian” measures water temperature and pH levels to quantify the condition of the aquarium. It was developed to lighten the burden on the creator’s mother, who takes care of the goldfish he caught when he was in fifth grade. Reportedly, it has led to more efficient care.
The “Daily Checklist App” is designed to prevent kids from getting scolded by their dads by turning daily tasks into a checklist. It’s a full-fledged app that allows users to reorder items, sort them by category, and even displays a completion rate. A fourth-grade boy shared a clear career plan: he hopes to work as an independent programmer in a team of three to four people in the future.
The Ishida Prize went to “Cheer Robot Maria.” This project was created by a brother and his twin sisters. It’s a cheerleader robot designed to encourage the two sisters to work hard on their homework. It detects people and cheers them on with dance moves, voice messages, and text messages. The sisters reportedly said, “It kind of motivated us.”

We would like to extend our heartfelt thanks to everyone who sponsored, collaborated with, supported, or endorsed this event. We would also like to thank
the judges.
And to all the children who submitted entries, thank you so very much!

To Mr. Yoichiro Kawaguchi, Head Judge; Mr. Masahiko Inami, Executive Committee Chair; and Executive Committee members Mr. Endo from ASCII and Mr. Shimizu from UEI—thank you for all your hard work. Even though our conversations are a bit off, being with all of you always makes me feel at ease for some reason (*^^*)

Finally, from Professor Inami’s presentation:
“Let’s Program the Future.”