[Offtopic] Fwd: NCSS Programming Challenge: Python

[stephen at melbpc.org.au]

Fwd:
> From:   "Steve Madsen" <smad2585 at optusnet.com.au>
> Date:   Thu, 24 Jul 2008 07:00:27 +1000
> Subject:  NCSS Programming Challenge: Python 
 
Hello Everyone:

The NCSS Challenge 2008 starts next Monday July 28th.

The NCSS Challenge 2008 is an online programming competition
designed to teach students to program with Python. Unlike
most other competitions we don't assume the students already
know how to program. Each week, we release a set of notes and
resources for learning aspects of programming, including:

* variables and data types;
* control structures;
* algorithms;
* file I/O;
* functions;
* code reading and debugging;
* code style and comments.

A set of 5-6 interesting problems (the 'challenges') are released
at the same time which test the new material for that week and
consolidate understanding of the previous weeks' material.

Participants submit their solutions to our web-based marking system
which checks the correctness of their solution against a battery
of test cases. These test cases are designed to lead the student
through solving the problem where possible, and encourage them to
think about thorough testing. Points are awarded for solving each
problem and there is a small penalty for making a large number of
submissions to discourage resubmitting without thinking!

This year, we will have two divisions of the Challenge for the first
time: beginner's and advanced. The beginner's division will follow
a similar syllabus to previous competitions but the questions will
be simpler. The advanced division will assume either a strong
background in programming or participation in the previous Challenge
and the questions will reach a very high level of difficulty. The
advanced division will also include some additional material on
regular expressions, recursion and parsing.

The Challenge starts next Monday 28th July and will run for 5 weeks.
Questions and resources will be released at 9am on Monday morning
and the solutions need to be submitted by 8:59pm on the following
Sunday for beginner's and 11:59pm Sunday for advanced. Our model
solutions will then be released for that week's problems.

The first week is our 'friendly week' and so there are no points for
solving the problems. This gives participants a chance to install
and run Python on their own machines, and get used to our online
testing system, and judge which division they should compete in.

It also means it is possible to sign up at any time next week without
being disadvantaged at all, so it isn't too late to sign up your class!

The cost is $11 per student. We know that it can take some time for
schools to collect money and send us a cheque, so we are happy for
participants to start the competition before the money arrives. We will
not send out certificates of participation and commendation unless the
payment has been received.

Teachers can see both a summary of the performance of their students
and inspect all of their submissions. Teachers are also welcome to
try out the problems themselves. Some schools have used the Challenge
as an in class activity for 5 weeks, others have created lunch time
clubs for working on problems, while others still have just set them
as fun after school extension material for gifted students. We have
been particularly pleased to hear stories of students rushing to the
whiteboard to discuss how to solve the problems.

We also have online forums for each problem, and the participants have
been very helpful (whilst maintaining some spirit of competition) when
others have been stuck on a problem. We also have a number of tutors
who monitor participants' progress and send encouragement and hints
via email.

There are currently around 400 students and teachers registered for
the Challenge from around Australia, which will probably grow to
over 600 by the end of next week, so join the fun!

If you have any questions, please email challenge at it.usyd.edu.au
or ring me on the numbers below.

thanks,
James

---
Dr. James Curran E: james at it.usyd.edu.au
University of Sydney Fellow W: www.it.usyd.edu.au/~james
Director, National Computer Science School W: www.ncss.edu.au
School of Information Technologies, P: +61 (0)2 9036 6037
J12, University of Sydney, M: +61 (0)431 013 320
NSW 2006, Australia F: +61 (0)2 9351 3838

--
Cheers Steve & James
Stephen Loosley
Victoria, Australia