Written by: Tiffany Westry
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High school students from around Alabama are invited to put their skills to the test in the High School Programming Contest at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. The contest brings talented students from throughout the state to the UAB campus to compete and demonstrate their computer programming and problem-solving skills.
The competition will be held Saturday, Feb. 17, at Campbell Hall, 1300 University Blvd. from 10:30 a.m.-4 p.m., and is open to all Alabama high school students, which includes public, private and home schools. Participants can register online on the contest website. The cost of registration is $20 per student and will increase to $30 after Feb. 10. Participants will also be allowed to register on-site. The top finishers will be awarded cash prizes.
“The purpose of the High School Programming Contest is to give students with an interest in computer programming the chance to solve interesting challenges in a competitive environment,” said Peter Pirkelbauer, Ph.D., assistant professor and contest organizer. “The tension in these contests is similar to sports competitions.”
Students can compete individually and in teams to demonstrate their programming skills by attempting to solve six computer programming problems within a three-hour period. The set of problems will span various levels of difficulty. In everyday life, computer programmers write and test code that allows computer applications and software programs to function properly. They turn the program designs created by software developers and engineers into instructions that a computer can follow.
The High School Programming Contest has been hosted by the UAB College of Arts and Sciences Department of Computer Science for more than 10 years. For more information, visit the contest website.