Ten-year-old Ben Handly, of Falls Church, has submitted a computer game he wrote as an entry to a contest sponsored by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The CDC is looking for the best way to present flu information in an app with the CDC Flu App Challenge.
Ben wrote it using Scratch, a programming language out of MIT. Scott Daugherty, a teacher at Thomas Jefferson Elementary, started a Scratch programming club at Ben’s school.
In Ben’s game, viruses and sick people chase the game player, who must fend them off with a vaccine (giving flu information along the way, like “use tissues when you sneeze” and “get a vaccine”).
Ben’s online Scratch app is called “Beat the Flu: A Fun Way To Learn How to Combat the Flu.” For more information, visit fluapp.challenge.gov.
