Meet the new #HourOfCode: Dance Party character!

This year for Dance Party 2019 we added new songs, new backgrounds and even a new coding block. And with your help, we also added a new dancer!

In September we asked students to submit drawings for a new Dance Party character, and we were blown away by the response. We received more than 400 submissions from students around the world — from Italy to Portugal to Israel and Australia, we loved receiving so many creative and fun drawings!

We narrowed the submissions down to 15 finalists and then put them to a vote by Code.org staff:

Top row, left to right: 1. Starhead by Avi P, 2. Fancy man by Juliana S., 3. Astronaut by Guy H., 4. Apple head by Rishikesh V., 5. Punk panda by Ryan W., 6. Disco elephant by Ellie T., 7. Round panda by Ryley F., 8. Top-hat turtle by Sean F., 9. Narwhal by Alexis G., 10. Fox by Mohita I., 11. Sloth — our winner! — by Genevieve P., 12. Axolotl by Jasmine T., 13. Platypus by Lucas S., 14. Dancing chicken by Melanie L., 15. Monkey by Kiran P.

The race was close, but in the end there could only be one winner! Meet Sloth, drawn by Genevieve P., from Herbert Hoover Middle School in Edison, NJ!

Genevieve told us a little about her inspiration for drawing the sloth:

“Honestly, it was when [my teacher] mentioned that all of the characters in Dance Party had long arms and legs, so I looked up online, ‘animals that have long arms and legs.’ Then I found a picture of a sloth stuffed animal and I thought it was so cute! After that, I just brainstormed a little and tweaked the design until I felt it was perfect.”

The result is adorable, and sloth is ready to dance!

A HUGE thank you to all the students who submitted drawings to us, and we hope you love creating dance parties with the new character. Be sure to register your Hour of Code event and get ready to dance!

-Kirsten, Code.org