TALK about starting young: Celine Chan, four, took on competitors far older in a national computer programming contest held here recently.

Celine and her sister, Charlene, eight, proved more than a match for the older competitors, trumping most of them handily in the contest, organised by the Information Technology Standards Committee which is supported by the Infocomm Development Authority (IDA).

Called XtremeApps, the competition required those taking part to program computer applications from scratch.

Armed with just the basics in the Squeak programming language, as well as encouragement - but no help - from mum and dad, the Chan sisters came up with an application called Health Fairies.

It is an interactive, educational story with an anti-smoking message: The main protaganist is a beautiful young girl who loses her youth, and good looks, because she puffs away like there's no tomorrow.

The sisters took the bulk of the June holidays to complete their entry. They had to come up with the storyline, draw the characters, and write programs that animated the characters, among other things.

Their effort paid off: Health Fairies landed a merit award in the junior category of the contest, beating 68 other contestants, mostly 11 and 12 year olds.

The judges were impressed by the interactivity of the application.

One, Mr Robert Chew, chairman of the ITSC, said, 'It was quite good, and I didn't realise at all that the creators were just a four-year-old and an eight-year-old when I shortlisted the application. Celine was our youngest contestant ever.'

The sisters, who like online gaming, received lots of encouragement from their parents, both accountants.

'I feel it was great that they had this chance to explore something out of their range,'said Mr Henry Chan, an avid gamer himself.

Read the full report in Tuesday's edition of The Straits Times.