CodeKitten - Drag and drop programming platform
Techstack: PostgreSQL, Python, Go, ReactJS
Introduction
CodeKitten, the first Visual Programming Language (VPL) platform for children in Vietnam, aimed to create a fun and interactive environment where kids could learn programming through drag-and-drop coding. Developed by Teky Academy, CodeKitten sought to:
Provide a purely Vietnamese platform based on Scratch Technology (MIT).
Enable children to share personal projects with a national community of young programmers.
Foster creativity by allowing users to play each other's games, share ideas, and collaborate on projects.
Challenge
CodeKitten faced several critical challenges:
Limited user engagement: Only 15% of registered users actively used the platform, primarily due to a lack of interactive and gamified features.
Technical limitations: The platform could only support 1,500 concurrent users, leading to frequent crashes during peak hours.
Low community interaction: Less than 10% of users shared projects or interacted with others, limiting the platform's social and collaborative potential.
High maintenance costs: Maintaining the platform consumed 30% of the IT budget, leaving little room for innovation.
CodeKitten needed a scalable, engaging, and cost-effective solution to transform their platform and achieve their vision.
Solutions
With expertise in IT outsourcing and custom software development, ElevenX designed and built a future-ready platform tailored to CodeKitten’s needs:
1. Interactive and Gamified Learning Experience:
Introduced gamification elements (badges, leaderboards, and rewards) using ReactJS and VueJS, increasing user engagement to 50%.
Added interactive tutorials and challenges to make learning programming fun and accessible for children.
2. Enhanced Community Features:
Developed a project-sharing hub where users could upload, play, and comment on each other's games and projects. This feature saw 5,000+ projects shared monthly within the first 3 months.
Integrated real-time collaboration tools (chat and project forking) to encourage teamwork and idea-sharing among young programmers.
3. Scalable and Reliable Infrastructure:
Migrated the platform to AWS, enabling support for 10,000+ concurrent users without performance issues.
Reduced downtime to less than 0.1%, ensuring a smooth user experience even during peak hours.
4. Agile Development and Continuous Improvement:
Delivered the platform in 8 months with a 95% on-time delivery rate.
Conducted monthly feedback sessions with children, parents, and educators to refine the platform based on user needs.
Result
CodeKitten is the first VPL programming platform for children in Vietnam, built by a team of leading engineers and experts at Teky Academy. This is a purely Vietnamese drag-and-drop programming platform developed by Teky, based on Scratch technology, MIT. Furthermore, users can share personal projects with the entire national community of programming students, play each other's games, share ideas, and create dreams with command lines.
Conclusion:
CodeKitten’s success story highlights ElevenX’s ability to:
Understand complex challenges and deliver tailored solutions.
Leverage cutting-edge technology to drive engagement and scalability.
Ensure cost-efficiency while maintaining high-quality standards.
The new platform transformed CodeKitten’s programming education experience:
20,000+ children joined the platform within the first 6 months, a 400% increase from the previous year.
User engagement improved by 50%, with 60% of users actively using the platform for more than 3 months.
Traffic increased by 300%, with the platform handling 1 million+ monthly page views without performance issues.
Operational costs were reduced by 20%, freeing up resources for further innovation.