Computer Science

There are a couple of annual Computer Science Competitions hosts by Ontario organisations that are of interest to secondary school students interested in challenges in computer science and programming. Both feature registration procedures accessible from the Internet for those interested.

Holt Software Graphics Contest '99
Holt Software has long been terrific friends and supporters of computer science activities in Greater Essex County. Last year, Tom West presented a full day workshop on Object Oriented Turing for secondary school computer science teachers.

The Holt Software Graphics Contest is designed to promote creative use of the Turing and Object Oriented Turing programming languages, specifically by encouraging graphics, sound, and music in the final presentation of the contest entry.

To enter, students create their best graphics, sound, and music program and submit through their teacher to the contest organisers.

Online at http://www.holtsoft.com/turing/library.html, you will find an application form for this year's contest (entries close May 10, 1999) in addition to contest winners from past years.

Canadian Computing Competition
This annual contest, sponsored by the University of Waterloo takes a different format. Presented with a series of five problems, students analyse the requirements of the problem definition and write a program as a solution to the problem.

The goal of the contest is to promote algorithm design and problem solving among computer science students. The only requirement for programming language is that the language chosen be supported by the school. The Stage 2 competition requires one of Pascal, C, or C++.

The registration form for the Canadian Computing Competition is online at the CCC site http://www.math.uwaterloo.ca/~ccc/ and the deadline for applications if January 15, 1999. Stage 1 of the contest itself will be run in individual schools on March 2, 1999 with Stage 2 held at the University of Waterloo on April 22-24, 1999.

Practicing!
How does one begin to practice for computer science contests? Obviously, one way of staying on top of your computer programming game is to solve and then refine the programs given in class. For the computer science teachers, coming up with new problems can be a challenge. But, no more. How about a weekly computer science challenge mailed to your mailbox? It's true. Visit the site http://usaco.uwp.edu/COW/Cow.html, signup for the mailing list and watch the sample problems roll in.