The Top Bananas of Go Bananas!
Back-to-school can be a hectic but exciting time for students, parents, and educators. To help support the ease of back-to-school and make it the most fun ever, we hosted an engaging and playful coding competition called GO BANANAS!
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What was Go Bananas!
Go Bananas! was a super fun lower barrier to entry competition for Unruly schools all across the US and Canada. This is how it worked:
Crash the Unruly Gorilla was scaling a very very tall skyscraper to get to the Top Banana, and needed lots of help to get there. The two ways schools could earn points in the competition and give Crash the boost he needed to climb was the following:
1. # of stomps on a Yellow-lit Splat
2. # of coding blocks used
Schools had from September 7th - 30th to stomp and code all their way to the Top Banana title and win one of two competition exclusive Yellow Splat trophies (AKA a truly bananas first place trophy)!
Banana Split
In order to ensure that Crash made it to the top of the building, we created the ultimate yellow-lit stomp game called Banana Split! This is a hopscotch-inspired game where students skip, jump, or hop to each yellow-lit Splat to complete their turn and gain points towards being the best of the Go Bananas! bunch.
PE Teacher from Katie Wright Elementary School, David Kober, got a late start to the competition but used the Banana Split game during his PE classes to boost their score.
“Splats are a new exciting tool for my students to get moving! The kids already love the Splats, so engagement is no problem. The Go Bananas! competition was a fun competition that my students really enjoyed!” - David Kober
The Battle of the Angela’s - Go Bananas! Top 2 Finalists
During the competition, there were two Unruly Schools completely in it to win it! South Euless Elementary School and Academy Adventures Midtown battled all month long for the first place spot in the yellow-lit stomp category. It was a race to the finish as they bounced between the #1 spot during the last remaining hours of the competition.
South Euless Elementary School
After just one week, South Euless Elementary School in TX had 50,000 yellow stomps on the leaderboard. They were crushing the competition! Angela Brown, the Library Media Specialist at the school, rallied everyone to go completely bananas for stomps with what she called Splat stations.
“Our team came up with a plan and it is being implemented well based on our Yellow Stomps! We have stomping stations in all the areas that all our students visit...Gym (last week), Music and Art (this week). Our students love seeing the leaderboard in the library.” - Angela Brown
In addition to Splats stations, South Euless students created personal stomp goals. One student set a goal of 1,000 stomps while playing Race in Place. You can hear her say, “I am not giving up!” as she reaches the 834 stomp count.
Academy Adventures Midtown
The school administrator, IT Specialist, and K-5 coding teacher at Academy Adventures Midtown, Angela Towner Mertz, was determined to be the best of the bunch in Go Bananas! After participating in our Stomp Madness competition last spring, her school jumped at the opportunity to compete again.
Angela’s students were ready with a strategy to optimize their yellow-lit stomps. They created a bracket challenge based on a 60-second countdown that they coded into Race in Place.
“Our kids have been doing bracket competitions all morning instead of their normal PE. They are sooooo motivated and excited! This is just one of the brackets from this morning: K-2 & 3-5. Top 4 competed to get a final winner…I cannot believe how fast some of these kids are. And to watch how much the balance of the little guys has improved. A benefit of Splats that we never even anticipated!” - Angela Towner Mertz
With only 36 students competing at Academy Adventures, they were truly motivated and excited to see their score skyrocket on the leaderboard. Angela was so proud of all the hard work that she promised them a banana split party if they place first in either category!
Top Bananas
So which Angela took home the yellow?!
The answer…they both did!
South Euless ended the competition with 184,375 yellow stomps BUT Academy Adventures pulled through with their coding skills and won the blocks built category with 8,659 unique blocks. These Top Bananas spots were well deserved and made for a nail-biting finish!
The Best of the Bunch
In total, there were over half a million yellow-lit stomps from all the schools that participated in Go Bananas! It was extraordinary to see schools all over America and Canada coding, stomping, and collaborating for the top spots!
Check out who made the “best of the bunch” ⬇️
Here Are A Few More A ‘Peeling’ Highlights
Congratulations to all the schools you participated in Go Bananas this fall! Crash thanks you for the help! He could not have reached the top of the skyscraper without you!
Do you want your school to be a part of the next Unruly competition? Learn more about the Unruly HOC competition coming up in December on a quick chat here.
