A coding mastermind in Cootehill

A Cootehill student has made it to the finals of the Bebras Computational Thinking Challenge for the second consecutive year.

The challenge involves critical and logical thinking as well as a proficiency in coding allowing students to solve interactive tasks online, all abilities 15-year-old Hunter McEniff possesses.

Speaking to The Anglo-Celt alongside his proud parents Karina and Darren, Hunter recalled his younger days when he adored solving complex mathematical problems, which he found to be “a lot of fun”. The more complicated, the better.

Upon entering St Aidan’s Comprehensive School in Cootehill, Hunter was given the subject choice of technical graphics or coding. With the quickly evolving tech industry, he opted for the latter; a “very interesting” choice.

In first year, he recalled working on a beginner website before moving on to “more complicated code” in second year. To date he has coded games and websites. The third year student never “really” found coding difficult and always had a “good grasp from the get go” of the subject.

He said the key to the subject is “just staying patient and working through all the difficult parts of coding”.

He explained: “You have one space where you see what’s happening and you have another space where you write your code, everything has to be correct when you’re writing your code, you can’t have any mistakes.

“You write the commands and stuff and then, when you run the programme, you see it,” he described.

While Hunter is now at the satisfactory stage of having his sheets of coding turning into fully functioning results, he says that “in the beginning it was frustrating because I always made mistakes, I always have wrong dimensions or coordinates on the plane so it would be a bit messy but you get used to it as you go on,” he said.

Early last year, Hunter received a message from his coding teacher Natalie Noone, to say that he had placed in the finals of the competition. At the time of entering the final, he thought he was just playing a game, completely unaware that it would land him in among the 200 finalists out of 12,000 people who took the test.

“I didn’t know that I had entered it until she told me,” he recalled.

His perseverance and hard work at the subject paid off, seeing him in the competition, which took place at Maynooth University last April.

“At the time I didn’t think it would be something I’d do to this scale, I thought it would be for fun,” Hunter said, adding that the initial test involved solving puzzles and problems which he “found fun”.

With 45 minutes to complete the test, he said it was “very difficult” but he was “happy” with the end result.

This year, Hunter predicts the competition will be “harder” as he will be in the 14-16 age category.

“I’m not as nervous,” he said.

“The puzzles are definitely going to be a bit more difficult this time,” he predicted.

However he added that he is “more experienced” this time around.

While Hunter is “not too sure” what he wants to do when he’s older, he believes coding will always be part of his life.

Meanwhile his parents Karina and Darren are delighted with their son’s success.

“He just keeps surprising us with how intelligent he is,” his mother beamed.

“It’s not so much that it’s coding, it’s logic. You just need to be very logical to be able to answer those questions so he does surprise me.

“His mind is just so quick to grasp things and you couldn’t be prouder.”

Both parents are incredibly proud of their son, and can’t wait to see what he does next.

Meanwhile his teacher described Hunter as an “exceptional student” who is “always striving to achieve excellent grades and project work of the highest standards.”