# Code Challenge Published articles for Code Challenge. This is one page of public article previews, not the complete archive. Follow Next page to continue. Summaries are not the original full articles. ## How the Space Invader Generator Works DevFeed: [How the Space Invader Generator Works]() Original publisher: [Read original article]() Author: Stanko Published: 2025-08-15T00:00:00Z Content type: tutorial Language: en Sources: [Stanko Tadić]() Topics: [creative coding](), [Code Challenge](), [3D]() Tags: [code-challenge](), [creative-coding](), [how-to](), [interactive]() ### AI overview An interactive tutorial about a Space Invader Generator made for a Creative Coding Amsterdam code challenge. It describes the project's origins, using the Rayven vector 3D renderer, and the author's research and pixel-art sketches for generating invaders. ### Source excerpt This is an interactive article. To fully experience it, you'll need to turn JavaScript on. I recently made the Space Invader Generator for Creative Coding Amsterdam code challenge. I made it for fun of course... and galactic domination too! You can see how it looks below and in this post I'll show you how it works using an interactive animation. Here are a few invaders it can generate: While showing friends how it works, I realized the process would look great animated. So I decided to write another interactive blog post. I'll give you some background first, but if you are eager to see the process, feel free to jump straight to the interactive part. How it started # I was working on a new version of Rayven, my vector 3D renderer. Sometimes I get stuck working on tools - they turn into never-ending projects and I never actually use them to create something. At some point I became aware of this pattern, and I think I've gotten better at wrapping projects up, releasing them in one form or another, and moving on. So I thought it would be cool to do a few plots using Rayven instead of endlessly tweaking the renderer itself. I wanted something simple that I could whip up quickly. It would be a meaningful milestone, even if I didn't finish everything I planned for Rayven. Then I thought of Space Invaders. They are small, easy to render with 3D blocks, and instantly recognizable as part of video game history. I did a few renders of the classic space invader and started thinking that it would be fun to generate random ones and create a series of plots. That sounded like a good idea to share as a code challenge. The code challenge # I was pleasantly surprised that people liked the idea. We drafted some rules and the Space Invaders code challenge was on! At the time of writing, the challenge is still ongoing, but once it wraps up, I'll link to all the submissions. I've already seen some works in progress and there is some really cool stuff coming - stay tuned! From doodles to ## Weekly Code Challenge (spring 2021) DevFeed: [Weekly Code Challenge (spring 2021)]() Original publisher: [Read original article]() Author: Stanko Published: 2021-09-30T00:00:00Z Content type: article Language: en Sources: [Stanko Tadić]() Topics: [Code Challenge](), [Programming](), [JavaScript](), [Three.js](), [CSS](), [browser]() Tags: [browser](), [code](), [code-challenge](), [css](), [demo](), [game](), [javascript](), [programming]() ### AI overview A retrospective on a ten-week weekly code challenge held in a Belgrade office during spring 2021. The challenge produced 47 browser-based submissions, with participants free to choose their tools and themes. ### Source excerpt If you just want the see the submissions, jump to the Weekly Code Challege website. But please bare in mind that the most of these were created in a couple of hours. This post is long overdue. Earlier this year, I came with an idea to organize a weekly code challenge in our Belgrade office. With the whole COVID situation going on, I hoped it could inspire people to start hacking and make programming fun again. Some people were interested, so we ran the challenge in spring this year, from April to June. It lasted for ten weeks, each week had a different theme and there was a total of 47 submissions. We didn't impose a lot of rules, it just had to run in a browser, but you could use any library or framework and spend as much (or as little) time as you wanted. Challenge started hot, but as weeks passed by, interest slowly faded away. After ten weeks we decided to end it. To be honest, it lasted longer than I initially hoped. A lot of people tried new stuff, played around and had fun hacking little things. I dare to say it was a complete success and I have to say thanks to all the people who participated! Therefore, I urge you to organize something similar yourself, in your office, university or city, it doesn't matter as long as people are hacking for the sake of it. It is a wonderful and fulfilling process. Shameless self promotion # I was happy that people were interested to participate, and I enjoyed it myself tremendously. In the process, I learned a thing of two and hacked together a few things I would probably never try if there wasn't for the code challenge. Out of the nine things I created (I skipped the last week), these three are my favorite: ASCII rendered Flappy Bird clone Sloppy clone of The Unfinished Swan CSS only 3D people making waves All three are completely different and they vary from a vanilla JavaScript ASCII rendered game, followed by a simple ThreeJS demo to the complex 3D shapes CSS objects.To be fair, these are only complex in the context of u ## Idiomatic Kotlin: Solving Advent of Code Puzzles, Binary Boarding DevFeed: [Idiomatic Kotlin: Solving Advent of Code Puzzles, Binary Boarding]() Original publisher: [Read original article]() Author: Svetlana Isakova Published: 2021-09-10T08:50:58Z Content type: tutorial Language: en Sources: [Kotlin]() Topics: [Kotlin](), [Advent of Code](), [Code Challenge](), [Algorithm](), [Code]() Tags: [100daysofcode](), [advent-of-code](), [adventofcode](), [algorithm](), [code](), [code-challenge](), [codenewbie](), [coding](), [community](), [development](), [engineering](), [inclusive](), [kotlin](), [software]() ### AI overview A Kotlin tutorial solves Advent of Code 2020 Day 5, Binary Boarding. It explains how boarding-pass characters encode rows and columns as binary values, then uses seat IDs to identify the highest seat ID and the missing seat. ### Source excerpt Let's continue our journey of understanding what "idiomatic Kotlin" means and solve one more puzzle from the Advent of Code challenge. The puzzles are independent of each other, so you don't need to check any of the previous ones we've already covered. Simply read through the following solution or watch the video. We hope you learn something new! Day 5. Binary Boarding We're boarding the plane! We need to analyze the list of boarding passes and find the seat with the highest seat ID. Then we need to find the one seat missing from the list, which is ours. You can find the full task description at https://adventofcode.com/2020/day/5.* A seat is specified as, for example, FBFBBFFRLR, where F means "front", B means "back", L means "left", and R means "right". The first 7 characters are either F or B and they specify exactly one of the 128 rows on the plane (numbered 0 through 127). The last three characters are either L or R; these specify exactly one of the 8 columns of seats on the plane (numbered 0 through 7). A more detailed encoding description is given on the puzzle page. Every seat has a unique seat ID, calculated by multiplying the row by 8 and then adding the column. The puzzle input is the list of boarding passes. The first task is to find the boarding pass in this list with the highest seat ID. The second task is to find the missing boarding pass in the list. The flight is completely full, there's only one missing boarding pass, and that's our seat. However, some of the seats at the very front and back of the plane don't exist on this aircraft, so they are missing from the list as well. As usual, we suggest that you try to solve the task on your own before reading the solution. Here's how you can set up Kotlin for this purpose. Solution Let's first discuss the encoding of the boarding passes. Note how it is a nicely "hidden" binary representation of natural numbers! Let's take a closer look. Boarding pass: binary representation First, let's look at the rows. ## Technical Interview Reform, Part 2: The Recruiting Perspective and Results DevFeed: [Technical Interview Reform, Part 2: The Recruiting Perspective and Results]() Original publisher: [Read original article]() Published: 2020-06-26T00:00:00Z Content type: article Language: en Sources: [SoundCloud Backstage Blog]() Topics: [Back end](), [Code Challenge](), [Code]() Tags: [backend](), [code-challenge](), [engineering](), [interviewing](), [recruiting](), [review](), [technical]() ### AI overview SoundCloud describes its backend engineering interview reform, focusing on a take-home code challenge that required substantial candidate and reviewer time. The article explains the recruitment bottleneck, high dropout rates, and process changes such as collaborative review squads and iterative improvements based on candidate feedback. ### Source excerpt Please also see Part 1: Rethinking the Backend Engineering Interview Take-Home Challenge Among the engineering groups at SoundCloud, backend... ## Technical Interview Reform, Part 1: Rethinking the Backend Engineering Interview Take-Home Challenge DevFeed: [Technical Interview Reform, Part 1: Rethinking the Backend Engineering Interview Take-Home Challenge]() Original publisher: [Read original article]() Published: 2020-06-25T00:00:00Z Content type: article Language: en Sources: [SoundCloud Backstage Blog]() Topics: [Back end](), [Code](), [coding]() Tags: [backend](), [code-challenge](), [engineering](), [hiring](), [interviewing](), [process](), [technical](), [technical-interview]() ### AI overview SoundCloud explains why it comprehensively rethought its backend engineering take-home challenge. The previous coding exercise often required many hours over several weeks, creating a burden for candidates and causing a significant dropoff in the hiring pipeline. The revised approach is framed as a code tryout intended to assess an essential engineering skill while reducing time costs and limiting bias through an anonymous audition. ### Source excerpt Most SoundCloud backend engineers have good feelings about the old backend engineering take-home challenge. It's commonly been characterized...