2005 LSU CCT High School Programming Contest

About This Contest

We have been hosting a High School Programming Contest for a number of years now. Many things have changed over the years. This year we introduce a new hosting department: Center for Computation & Technology. The computers are newer. Some old languages are gone. A new OS (Linux) is available with its complement of languages.

Regardless of these changes, the goals remain the same. We are trying to provide High School students an opportunity to solve a series of problems via a computer in a competitive setting. We hope that the competition provides the students a chance to learn more about the opportunities and challenges that computing can offer them. We hope to challenge the students and inspire them to reach new heights. We hope to offer some aid to the teachers. And we try to do this in one fun day!

I am sure you have already checked out the schedule to see when and where things are.

You probably noticed that we have Veteran and Novice Divisions. We suggest that students with less than 1 full year of programming experience sign up for the Novice Division and that students who are beyond their first year choose the Veteran Division. The problems for the Veterans are a little more difficult and may require additional knowledge (we assume that Veterans are comfortable with arrays for instance). The decision is up to the team.

We request that teams of 3 students compete. A significant component of the contest is the ability of the students to work together as a team (one computer per team). Teams of 2 students are acceptable, but 3 are preferred.

Along with the actual challenge of the contest, each team member and their teacher will receive a t-shirt. We will also provide lunch for everyone. The winners in each division will receive prizes.

Please follow the links on the left to view information about previous contests (in particular, look at the problem sets).

Last year, we did not host a High School Programming Contest. We tried to. Unfortunately, the resources we needed (computers, classrooms, people, ...) were not all available on a single Saturday last year. We would really like to hear any suggestions you might have for when we should hold this contest (in the January to May time frame).

If you have suggestions/comments/whatever, please send them to hs2005@contest.cct.lsu.edu.

Thank you for your time and effort! We hope you enjoy the contest.

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