The 2016 eir Junior Spiders Award winners were announced at a ceremony at Croke Park, Dublin yesterday (25th April 2016).
 
Hosted by RTE’s Aidan Power, the Awards recognise and reward youths and young adults aged 4 to 19 for the innovative ways in which they use the internet, especially around website coding, development and design.
 
Established in 2009, and now a favourite with schools and CoderDojo clubs across the country, the eir Junior Spiders Awards was originally conceived by Business & Finance Media Group and has been supported over the years by main sponsors, eir.
 
The aim of the Awards is to acknowledge the innovation amongst web creators and to provide them with an exciting programme that will encourage further development of their technology skills in web design. As with previous years, the Awards have provided a springboard for students who wish to pursue a career in this sector by offering access to influential business executives.
 
There are three categories in the eir Junior Spider Awards. The Mega Spiders(aged 4 to 12 years), which has three sub-categories, Best Individual Project,Best Group Project and Creative Web Coding.
 
For older children, aged 13 to 15, there is The Giga Spiders and for students from 16 to 19, there is The Tera Spiders. The Giga and Tera Spiders reward students under the sub-categories: Best Group Project, Best Individual Project, Best Concept, Best Web Design, Creative Web Coding and the Suiomh Is Fearrawards the students with the best site using the Irish language.
 
The Tera Spiders also has the Best Transition Year Project, Best Digital Gameand Best Mobilised App. Each age division is also presented with an overall Grand Prix winner, those who have excelled in their field.
 
The Grand Prix Winners for this year are:

Mega Spider (Aged 4-12 years) – Cool STEAM Kids, The Teresian School, Dublin 4
Cool STEAM Kids is an app and website encouraging kids to try out science, technology, engineering, art and maths (STEAM). It is available to download in the Google app store or by visiting www.coolsteamkids.com. The app is designed to encourage 10 to 15 year olds to try out STEAM. This in turn will bridge the skills gap that currently exists. This site was hand-coded using html, CSS and JavaScript.     

Giga Spider (Aged 13-15 years) – Gaeilge Iontach,Midleton College, Co. Cork 
Gaeilge Iontach is designed to make learning Irish more enjoyable for primary school students. It utilises games, audio, images and graphics to present vocabulary in a new, exciting and entertaining way. It is designed to be used at home and in schools, across a range of devices, such as iPads, laptops, etc. Each topic has a list of vocabulary with images and audio pronunciation. There are also games based on each topic. Gaeilge Iontach was created with HTML and CSS and uses the Bootstrap framework. The games were developed in JavaScript and use the Phaser library.

Tera Spider (Aged 16-19 years) – VT Networks, CoderDojo Athlone, Westmeath
This project was developed for an IoT start-up. It was custom designed and built from scratch using HTML, CSS and JavaScript.

This year saw the largest number of entries ever submitted, from over 25 counties across Ireland. The standard of entries was also the highest it has ever been with the majority of the winning sites being hand-coded.
Previous winners of the Awards have continued on an upward trajectory with 2014 European Digital Girl of Year and 2015 Irish Tatler Women of the Year, Lauren Boyle, having won both Creative Web Coding and Grand Prix for the Mega Spiders.

Full details of this year’s winners are as follows:

MEGA SPIDER AWARDS (Aged 4-12 years)

Best Individual Project:

Don’t Pass the Raspberry Jam, Cloghans Hill NS, Co. Galway
This website is designed to help kids and teachers to learn how to use the raspberry pi. It introduces the main programs and games that are on the pi and tells you how to connect up wi-fi and add-ons.

Best Group Project:

1916 Mario, Gortskehy NS, Mayo
This is a html5 platform game which takes Mario through 13 levels containing information on the build-up, events and aftermath of the 1916 Rising. It should work on desktop, phone or tablet. It will also be shared as a Facebook game. This website contains details on the game, the pupils' thoughts and a timeline of the events surrounding the Rising.

Creative Web Coding:
Cool STEAM Kids, The Teresian School, Dublin 4
Cool STEAM Kids is an app and website encouraging kids to try out science, technology, engineering, art and maths. It is available to download in the Google app store or search www.coolsteamkids.com.
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GIGA SPIDER AWARDS (Aged 13-15 years)

Best Individual Project:
YouthTech, New-Bridge Integrated College,Loughbrickland, Co. Down
YouthTech website allows young people to find technology and science events anywhere in Ireland. This site was created on the students’ own theme Castle Street. Text wrangler was also used, then Brackets when text wrangler kept crashing. WordPress as a CMS, Yoast, Search, Twitter/Periscope Plugins, subscribe sign-up plugin.

Best Group Project:
AJ’s Garden, Our Lady's, Dublin 6W
AJs Garden is a website all about gardening. It has information about different plants and weather conditions needed and also what you could make after the plants have grown, it will have useful and interesting facts as well.
 
Creative Web Coding:
Gaeilge Iontach, Midleton College, Co. Cork
Gaeilge Iontach is designed to make learning Irish more enjoyable for primary school students. It utilises games, audio, images and graphics to present vocabulary in a new, exciting and entertaining way. The mix of media makes it engaging and interactive. Each topic has a list of vocabulary with images and audio pronunciation. There are also games based on each topic.

Best Concept:
Gaeilge Iontach, Midleton College, Co. Cork

Best Web Design:
Teen DIY, Coláiste Muire, Co. Cork
This website is a site for DIY. DIY was chosen because the group are interested in DIY. All of the DIY videos were found on YouTube and the pictures are from Google Images, Pinterest, Tumblr and Polyvore. Most of the projects on the website are bedroom DIY

Suíomh is Fearr:
Gaeilge Iontach, Midleton College, Co. Cork
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TERA SPIDER AWARDS (Aged 16-19 years)

Best Group Project:
Digital Youth Council, Scoil Mhuire CS, Clane, Co. Kildare
The Digital Youth Council is the first of its kind to launch in Europe. Comprising of some of the top young people in STEM in Ireland, the Youth Council aims to give a voice to young people involved in STEM in Ireland and provide them with a platform to influence the National Digital Strategy, and the future of STEM in education and everyday life. It was built by a number of the council members (All in school still).

Creative Web Coding:
VT Networks, CoderDojo Athlone, Westmeath
This project was developed for an IoT start-up. It was custom designed and built from scratch using HTML, CSS and JavaScript.

Best Individual Project:
Code Way, Hex CNC Technology Club, Co. Leitrim
Code Way was created to enlighten people about what coding is. A of individuals have never been introduced to coding in school or otherwise. This website aims to educate people on the basics of code and some helpful resources to get them started. This site was completely coded from a basic free text editor (Notepad++).

Best Digitalised Game:
Dottie Duck, Midleton College, Co. Cork
The player needs to match orange with orange, blue with blue … and so on to make his/her way through the mazes. Each colour acts as a portal to another location in the maze until eventually they make their way to the water (but they have to be careful of the foxes along the way). This game is aimed at young children displaying DCD tendencies. Its main aim is to improve the child’s hand eye coordination and fine motor skills through an enjoyable experience

Best Mobilised App:
Skizzie Ninja, Gaelcholáiste Luimnigh, Co. Limerick
Skizzie is a platform for young children to learn languages through animation, flashcards, and more items. It comes in English, Irish and French and there is an app and mobile/website game also.

Best Web Design:
Artists and Articles, Coláiste Muire, Co. Cork
This website is designed to help guitar students who are beginning to discover guitar or want to just learn songs. This site is also aimed at guitar teachers to be able to use the site as a tool to help their guitar students to learn. This website is a place for guitar lovers to ask questions and contact me about anything so I can help in any way I can.

Best Concept:
Code Way,Hex CNC Technology Club, Co. Leitrim
Code Way was created to enlighten people about what coding is. A of individuals have never been introduced to coding in school or otherwise. This website aims to educate people on the basics of code and some helpful resources to get them started. This site was completely coded from a basic free text editor (Notepad++).

Suíomh is Fearr:
Skizzie Ninja, Gaelcholáiste Luimnigh, Co. Limerick
Skizzie is a platform for young children to learn languages through animation, flashcards, and more items. It comes in English, Irish and French and there is an app and mobile/website game also.

Best Transition Year Project:
Donabate Community College, TY Journalism, Co. Dublin
The material for this website is generated by the students and facilitated by their teacher but it is the students who determine the content and approach. Students report on events happening in school and write articles. This year students have also set up a YouTube channel which has weekly podcasts, cookery videos, interviews and acoustic music sessions. They also have a twitter feed.
 

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