Frisco is known as a hotbed for youth sports.
This weekend, hundreds of kids will converge on the city for a different kind of competition.
iHack is a Frisco company's creation and in just its second year, it's already growing exponentially.
Abid Abedi is the co-founder of iCode, which is home to iHack. He’s excited about the event’s success.
“Last year, the first hackathon had about 223 kids show up," said Abedi. "This year, we are expecting about 300 to 400 kids.”
They're elementary to middle school students, and this competition gives them the venue to display their computing and problem solving skills. Individuals and teams are given different tasks, and problems to solve and their results are judged before winners are named.
“Last year, one of the kids came up with a solution for how to stop internet bullying," said Abedi. "That's an example of how when kids come together they can solve real world problems.”
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Julianna Bishnyakova is a nine year old student working at iCode on a project that is helping her prepare for the competition: She’s making a robotic hand.
“It's a working hand, and you press on these which are touch sensors and, um, the fingers go up,” Bishnyakova said. "We just made these out of like sticks.”
Ben Stafford was a winner at last year's iHack. He said he had an open mind to programming, adding “I just am a big fan it's just an open door and I went through it.”
“I had lots of fun at the hack and I'm looking forward to this year hopefully we'll do the same thing as last year and win,” he said.
The competition is this Saturday and there are still spots available if you know any kids who might be interested.
