Everyone knows there are plenty of opportunities for
athletic students to compete in high school, but what opportunities are there
for more academically-minded students who also want to compete?
This was what professor of computer science and
computer engineering Kenneth Blaha had in mind when he organized the Pacific
Lutheran University High School Programming Contest, which took place in the
Morken Center for Learning and Technology Saturday.
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| High school participants in the advanced division compete to solve
computer programming problems in the last ten minutes of the High School
Programming Contest in Morken Saturday Feb. 2 at 2:20 p.m. |
“It [the contest] gives them a chance to compete
just like you would compete in any other sport,” Blaha said of the high school
students who participated. “And then they’re winning a trophy, just like you
would if it was any sport.”
Blaha modeled this high school contest after the
International Collegiate Programming Contest for college students put on by the
Association of Computing Machines, or ACM. Similar high school level contests
take place across the nation at different times, including two per year at the
University of Washington. PLU’s contest is unique in that it uses the same
software as used in the ICPC: PC^2.
Blaha got the idea to hold a contest at PLU from the
Puget Sound Computer Science Teachers’ Association’s website. He organized the
first High School Programming Contest at PLU three years ago. The first year
had only 35 participants mostly from local high schools, and this year there
were 58 participants from all over Western Washington. Blaha says it’s possible
they will have participants from all over Washington State next year.
“Part of the purpose of this is to try to advertise
the computer science program at PLU,” Blaha said. “When we first started this
program, a lot of the [high] schools … had no idea that we had a computer
science department here. And that’s starting to change.”
Juniors Maddy and Kerri from Holy Names Academy in
Seattle participated at their computer science teacher’s suggestion. They
formed the team hello world, drawing their name from the first programming they
learned on Java.
“It’s a good way to just practice our programming
skills,” Kerri said. She said she decided to participate because she likes
programming.
Other teams participated for different reasons. “I’m
in it to win it because it’s extra credit,” junior Aaliyah from Cleveland High
School in Seattle said. She is in AP Computer Science at her high school and
part of the team A$APCS.
Nineteen teams participated in the novice division
of the contest, and five teams in the advanced. Each team consisted of between
one and three participants from the same school. Although the contest is open
to all K-12 students, most of the participants were high school juniors or
seniors this year. According to Blaha, junior high students have participated
in the past.
Two of the novice teams solved all of the problems. The
team ); DROP TABLE TeamNames;-- from Roosevelt High School won first place in
the advanced division. They were given a perpetual trophy to display in their
school for the remainder of the school year.
Members of the top three teams in each division earned
gold, silver or bronze medals.
Organizations sponsored the event, providing raffle
prizes that any participant could win regardless of how they did in the
contest. Microsoft donated six X-Box games and Microsoft Office Suite software,
McNeel & Associates donated Rhino 5 software, Garfield donated PLU clothing
and a $30 gift certificate, and Intel donated swag such as light-up pens. The
Department of Computer Science and Computer Engineering provided the grand
prize for the drawing: a Samsung Galaxy 3 tablet.
