Upcoming PSCSTA Spring Programming Contest
April 20, 2019
Registration
Registration for the April 20, 2019 contest is CLOSED.
Already registered? To view registration status, click here.
General Information
Sponsored by TEALS
Middle & High School students (Age 13+ only) will solve programming problems in teams of 1-3 people with 1 computer using any programming language(s). Teams will compete in their division and the top three teams in each division will be awarded with medals and recognition. All participating students will also have a chance to participate in a raffle for additional prizes.
Keynote Speaker
George Moore, Chief Technology Officer Azure Global Retail Engineering, Microsoft Corp. Bio
Time, Location and Cost
- 8:30 am – 3:00 pm (lunch provided)
- Microsoft Commons, Microsoft Campus, Redmond, WA
- $30 per team, need-based scholarships available
Tentative Schedule
08:30 am Check-in
09:00 am Intro and Keynote
10:00 am Practice problem
11:00 am Contest begins
12:00 pm Lunch (contest does not stop)
02:15 pm Awards/ Raffle
Prepare for the PSCSTA Programming Contest
Rules & More Details About the Contest
Rules
- A team consists of one to three students aged 13+. Each team can register either in the Advanced division or the Intermediate/Novice division. Advanced division is primarily for students who have completed AP CS or similar one year text-based programming course.
- Your team may only use one computing device with a single display, single keyboard, and single mouse. This also means that no phones, tablets or calculators can be used during the contest.
- Your team may not access the Internet for any reason during the contest
- Your team cannot reference any past code or materials during the contest. The only exception to this is the use of a local (not online) API for your language(s)
- Your team will be provided with a packet on how to read input from a file in the following languages: C++, C#, Java, Perl, Python, Racket, and Whitespace. If you will be using a language not listed, email contests@pscsta.org right away. The programming language used in the contest must provide an environment that can be used without Internet access and must support the reading of local text files.
More Details
During the contest your team will be assigned a judge. This judge is someone who is either studying Computer Science in college or is currently an industry professional. When your team thinks they have solved a problem correctly you will call your judge over, they will plug a flash drive into your computing device and run your program with their super secret judges data. They will visually inspect your output, if it matches correctly they will award your team 60 points. It is important that you call your judge over every time your team believes they have completed a problem. Please check out the Practice Problems section below to get a good idea of the structure of the problems you will be presented with.
Tips and Tricks
Supplies to Bring
- Post-it notes to help track problems
- Paper and writing utensils to solve problems on paper
What to do when it starts
- Read all the problems first
- Solve the easy problems first (this builds up your confidence and gets you some quick points)
Practice Problems, Solutions, Data
The zip files linked below contain past packets, student data, and judges data. Everything you need to practice with your team before the contest.