This past week we ran week 9 of our digital art contest series. We had 12 entrants and gave out $600 to the top 3 students and $840 overall. Below we list the contest themes for the next 3 weeks and talk about our plans for 2022 after opening an art store for the winners of our first 9 weeks of contests. In 2022 we will be creating a marketplace for all students to code, create, publish and sell their own digital art. The winners this week:

1st place: Owen, Art Link, ($300)

2nd place: Nyles, Art Link, ($200)

3rd place: Samantha, Art Link, ($100)

To find out what's so special about these projects, click the:

button multiple times below the art and see how the project changes.

Contest Info

We are going to be running these weekly contest prizes every week. And: the prize money is going to go up. But we have to get more people entering to offer higher rewards. Next week we will remain at $840 in weekly prize money: $300 for first place, $200 for 2nd place and $100 for 3rd place plus up to 4 prizes of $60 for Strong Efforts outside the top 3.

The new (and latest) information for our contests is at:

hatchcoding.com/contests.

A note: We have big plans for 2022 including $10,000 contests—those are coming. We have decided to follow a strategy of slowly increasing the prize pool based on the # and quality of contest entries. We are still in the 10-20 range of entries. So as our community grows, and as more digital artists are entering the contests, we will have more resources for prizes. When we get to 20 entries for the contest, the prize money will go up.

Invite your friends to start learning at hatchcoding.com. Everything is free, other than getting 1:1 lessons with a Hatch certified coding coach to improve your coding skills.

Upcoming Contest Categories, the next 3 weeks

Dec 29: Outer Space & The Universe (Abstract / Imaginative)

Jan 5: Real Life / Figurative

Jan 12: Aquatic Life, Lakes & Oceans

Outer Space & The Universe: What can you build that is connected to Planets, Space, Space Stations, Asteroids, Space Ships, Stars, Galaxies or anything else. Could you build something every day like a clock, desk or chair but make it Alien or "From another planet"? How can you best make a collection of generative art with this theme?

Real Life / Figurative: What can you draw that imitates real life and also has variety built into the algorithm? How can generative art depict things like money, plants, animals, food, stores, roads, cities, etc? What kind of interesting patterns can you include in your art?

Aquatic Life, Lakes & Oceans: What can you create if you play with the idea of fish, sharks, octopuses and anything else that lives in the ocean or in a lake? Where could they be swimming? What could they be learning? What if these sea creatures could control technology? What kind of generative art could you make with this theme?

Note: In the Contest Info, at the back of the PDF there are tons of examples to be inspired by for all categories.

Updated Plans for Hatch Coding and Hatch.Art

Helping students to Code, Create and Earn is to core to our mission. Our current plan to deliver on this:

1) We are going to continue to run weekly coding contests and gradually increase the prize money.

2) This week (of Dec 27, 2021), we are launching the Hatch.Art store / marketplace / gallery where our contest winners can sell their art to their community and network. The more you work at your art, and the better it is, the more people might decide to buy it. After starting with contest winners, we will be opening up the ability for any student to take their generative art, put a shingle up and see if they can earn a small financial return.

Every piece of art in the marketplace is going to be generative, which means that the code can create multiple versions of the same art, but with variety across each piece. You can see the art above, and press the refresh button to see how this works. Hatch.Art will create unique items from each piece of code, e.g. "Blue Unicorn, #1 of 10", "Blue Unicorn, #2 of 10" etc. Buyers will then be able to log in and, with a credit card, buy a unique print.

As an artist, you will be able to Level Up by selling more art. You will have an artist profile which shows which contests you have placed in and earned money in. It will also show how prolific you are in getting your art out into the world.

The long term goal is to have a larger Hatch.Art community that will be looking for young, undiscovered talent. This larger community will hopefully enable strangers to buy digital art from the best students, which would be very cool.

Final Thoughts

We have a core group of coders who are just getting better and better at building generative art. Now that we have a base of success in creating the art, we will push forward and build the community of people who are looking at their art. When we launch the store, we are going to invite a larger group of people to look at the work being created by the artists. We are going to be partnering with communities and building generative art projects that appeal to specific audiences.

There are millions of people out there that want the next generation of coders and creators to be ready for the challenges of the next 20 years. By showing them what today's youth are capable of, we can inspire them to share the word about how amazing Hatch Coding and Hatch.Art really is.

We're just getting started!

Peter, CEO, Hatch Coding

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