The grand final of the Karel Challenge 2022 was held last Saturday in Barcelona. More than 90 young programmers approached the FIB ready to try to pass the last phase of Codelearn’s most exciting coding competition. Speed, strategy and accuracy are the keys to winning, three skills that all participants demonstrated throughout the day. However, only one participant in each category could win and this year’s winners were Antonio Gómez (KC Senior) and Roger Soler (KC Junior).
It was around 10am when the first participants of the Junior Final entered the building to collect their accreditation and get ready to compete. The first games started at 10.30am and the players had to face each other over five rounds in which simultaneous games of four players were played. Each player had a virtual robot Karel and had to guide it through the map assigned to the game so that his robot was the first of the four to reach the exit after collecting all the beepers and dodge obstacles on the way.
Three hours later, the top four finishers were left alone in the classroom to play the final game. Martí Valeri, Roger Soler, Martí Caselles and Pau Felguera were the four players who reached the Final 4 and faced the last map. Roger Soler was finally the fastest and was proclaimed the Junior Final winner. He won a Nintendo Switch, a trophy and 15,000 points he will be able to use on the platform. The rest of the participants in the final game took 10,000 points and a gaming keyboard.
After lunch it was the turn of the older ones and the Senior Final matches started at 4pm. The mechanics of the game were exactly the same as in the morning, but in this case the maps got a little more complicated and were adapted to the skills of the finalists over 12 years old. Bombs, fog, teleports, the use of the global reset… Getting to the exit was not easy with all these obstacles and difficulties (in fact, some games ran out of time), but some participants overcame them all and at the end of the afternoon the top four finishers sat at the same table to play the Final Four. Lluc Pujol, Antonio Gómez, Dani Barrera and Manel Abizanda played the last game and the fastest was Antonio Gómez, the Senior winner of the 2022 Karel Challenge. Thanks to his performance in the final he won a gaming laptop, the winner trophy of his category and 40,000 points on the platform, while the other three participants of the Final 4 got 30,000 points and a tablet.
All participants in both categories took home a finalist medal and a small gift. Also, lots of prizes were raffled among all the finalists: rubik’s cubes, Arduino kits, gaming keyboards, monitors, a mobile phone, a laptop and gaming chairs, among others.
Karel Challenge Online
This year we are organizing a second Karel Challenge competition which will be held 100% online. You can still register through this link until June 19, but the competition has already started and the more days you participate, the more chances you have to reach the final on July 2. The winner will receive a Google Pixel 6 and 30,000 points and the rest of the participants will get points depending on their position in the final ranking.
The game mechanics are exactly the same, but in this case it is allowed to use previously saved code, browser extensions, macros and similar resources, since in the online mode everything is legal as long as it doesn’t attack the server or other rivals and doesn’t change the source code of the game or the rules it follows.