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Creating a High School Programming Competition?

Posted by Cliff on from the writing-up-the-rules dept.

goatmon asks: "A few high school computer teachers across Tennessee have organized an annual "Geek Games" competition. We started last year with a great competition in PC repair, patterned after the VICA competition. This year we are trying to expand to add a competition in computer programming. The question is, how do you create a language-independent computer programming competition? Is it fair to have a timed test if one group of kids is hacking in Python and the other in C++? And who wins, the one with the shortest code, the fastest programmer, the one with code that works? Can anyone offer insight from experience or a pattern that we might be able to follow?"

4 of 18 comments (clear)

  1. IOI by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

    See the International Olympiad in Informatics model...
    Its at http://olympiads.win.tue.nl/ioi

  2. Here's how we did it by eap · · Score: 3, Informative
    I helped out at a high school programming contest once. The way we did it was to give out 9 or so problems and let the kids hack at them all day. Whoever got the most working at the end of the day won. We specified that they had to use either C++, Java, or Pascal, I think due to the fact that all our machines had these environments installed and none else.

    If I'd done it, I would have allowed them to use any language/environment. I think the ones using Perl would have had an advantage on certain problems, but that's just because we gave them many limited scope problems. If you gave them a single large problem, the ones using a stricter language like Java or Ada would probably have the advantage.

    Anyway, I think you need to avoid subjective judgments like elegance and concentrate on measuring things like correctness and speed of completion.

    Check out my college's programming contest website for some ideas.

    Good luck

  3. Learn from the ACM by martyb · · Score: 3, Informative

    The ACM (Association for Computing Machinery) has held college-level programming competitions for many years. Though the actual problems may be at a level beyond what you are looking for, they have long ago solved the issues of how to hold such a contest.

    Here is the 2001-2002 ACM International Collegiate Programming Contest page which lists, by region: a report, the standings, and the programming problems.

    The basic format is to have a number of problems for the contestant teams to try and solve in a fixed amount of time. (The first one I checked out listed 8 problems for a 5-hour contest.) It included explicit problem specifications, sample input, and sample output for each problem.

    I'm sure that by looking down the list, you'll find a baseline of informationt that will go well towards helping you to design your own competition. Good Luck!

  4. ascl by Zak_Arcatia · · Score: 2, Informative

    You might try the American Computer Science League. Apparently, they specialize in High School level competition.

    My high school participates in and loses at a smaller, local competition every year. As far as I know, students can work in C++, Pascal, or Basic. They're given a set of problems to play with for several hours. The team with the most correct implementations in the shortest amount of time wins.

    My information may be shaky. I have no first hand experience just yet.