Swift Student Challenge

Hi, I stumbled about the Swift Student Challenge at Apples Website and now I have some questions. I've programmed some Apps in Xcode and I think one of them might be pretty god for this Challenge. Now I've read something about Swift Playgrounds and I'm confused. What's a Swift Playground? Do I need to create one or is it enough to have the App? and finally: I'm currently 14 and live in Germany. Is it possible to participate when I'm 14? And if not would it be a big thing to lets say forget my age and somehow think that I'm 16? Thanks a lot for answers

Answered by CMDdev in 776066022
  1. I don't think there's a direct conversion method available, but you can copy the Swift files directly to the playground. For example, provided that you use SwiftUI, you can directly drag and drop the App, ContentView and other View files into your playground, and everything should work fine. But you will also need to copy the assets and resources separately and may require additional work. An example is when you use CoreML models (I need to look into this further, perhaps watch this thread for updates if you use ML models).
  2. Unfortunately, I am not entirely sure what run destination will be chosen in Xcode. I also asked this last year in this thread, and you might be able to include some specific instructions with your submission. But I would definitely recommend you to take on a challenge and make your app available on iPad / Mac, especially if you use SwiftUI, since it makes things easier. By the way, the Mac and iPad app should look pretty similar since the Mac options use Catalyst.

Also, since you said you already made an app, you might need to make sure your playground will not use external resources (i.e. the internet), since that was in last years' terms.

When you created your apps in Xcode, you probably made an Xcode project (with the .xcodeproj extension). The challenge requires you to make a Swift Playground that you can make with either Xcode or Swift Playgrounds. To make a Swift Playground, check the instructions in this thread.

Regarding your age, the full terms and conditions of the 2024 challenge are not yet available, but they will be released in February according to the website. Last year, it was specified in the terms that your parents / legal guardians may send an email to swiftstudentchallenge@apple.com to request permission if your age is under the minimum one in your region. If you would like to check the terms, it was specified in the paragraph before submission requirements. Here's a thread from last year if it helps.

Thank you for your answer! So now I've got 2 more questions: 1. Is it possible to copy an .xcodeproj project into a Swift Playground project seamlessly? 2. I saw some Videos about the Challenge on YouTube and all projects are shown on iPad or Mac. My App is developed for Ios and theoretically works on iPad but it looks really awful. Are the Projects also tested on iOS?

Accepted Answer
  1. I don't think there's a direct conversion method available, but you can copy the Swift files directly to the playground. For example, provided that you use SwiftUI, you can directly drag and drop the App, ContentView and other View files into your playground, and everything should work fine. But you will also need to copy the assets and resources separately and may require additional work. An example is when you use CoreML models (I need to look into this further, perhaps watch this thread for updates if you use ML models).
  2. Unfortunately, I am not entirely sure what run destination will be chosen in Xcode. I also asked this last year in this thread, and you might be able to include some specific instructions with your submission. But I would definitely recommend you to take on a challenge and make your app available on iPad / Mac, especially if you use SwiftUI, since it makes things easier. By the way, the Mac and iPad app should look pretty similar since the Mac options use Catalyst.

Also, since you said you already made an app, you might need to make sure your playground will not use external resources (i.e. the internet), since that was in last years' terms.

Swift Student Challenge
 
 
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