Coding contest brings high schools together

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This article was published 01/06/2023 (963 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Students from four Westman high schools gathered at Brandon University on Wednesday to square off in a computer science competition.

The competition randomly assigns participating students into groups, who then must work together to solve problems in the programming language Java.

“They’re in random teams of three to four students, drawn out of a hat,” said Cheryl Klimeck, who has taught at Crocus Plains Regional Secondary School for 24 years.

“They have been given a list of problems on a website and they try to solve as many problems as they can. They only get one computer, so they are coding on paper and then they put it in to see if it works or not.”

Correct answers earn points and the team with the most points is named the winner.

Local schools first started participating in 2016 through a University of Manitoba programming competition.

That first year, students assembled at Crocus Plains. However, due to the number of participating students, finding space meant disrupting other classes to make room.

Starting in 2017, participants started to gather at Brandon University in the computer labs located in the basement of the John R. Brodie Science Centre.

That University of Manitoba program eventually ceased operating, but the schools involved kept going with their own competition. This year’s edition is the fifth example of the locally run event.

This year, schools represented at the competition included Grade 10, 11 and 12 students from Crocus Plains, Vincent Massey High School, École secondaire Neelin High School and Virden Collegiate Institute.

Though the prize for the winning team might just be buttons they can pin to their clothes, the teachers organizing the event said all participating students will benefit from the experience.

“All of the skills they’re using on this Java-based website are applicable to every other language they could be using,” Klimeck said. “It’s a programming language that a lot of universities use with their first-year students … it takes a while to learn, but it is a very good language for a lot of different reasons.”

One of those reasons is that the Java platform is independent, meaning it can be used on Macs, PCs, iPhones, Android phones and many other types of computer systems. The video game Minecraft was originally programmed in Java.

Eleni Tellidis, a teacher from Vincent Massey, said that the computer science students attending Wednesday’s event represent a small group from each of their schools. By attending, they’re getting a chance to meet other peoples with similar interests and different ways of solving problems.

“If they’re to continue with that and go to work somewhere, they’re not going to have the same rules or the same strategies,” Tellidis said. “They’ll need to work with other people who come from other places, get along and bring their knowledge together. It’s also a great opportunity for them to be at Brandon University, which is the next level.”

That extends to the teachers in attendance as well. While the kids were hard at work coding, they were able to talk about how they each approach teaching computer science to their students.

According to Neelin teacher Diane Fontaine, interest in learning about computer science has been growing.

“We didn’t have a computer science program for a number of years and then started with just enough kids to run Grade 10,” she said. “Now we’ve had enough kids run through the first level that we’ll want to run them through a second level.”

This is the first year that Neelin has run two Grade 10-level courses in computer science, she said.

One of the students making the leap from high school computer science to studying it in university is Grade 12 Crocus Plains student Carter Howe. It was his second year participating in the event.

“It’s fun getting to work with other people you don’t know, throwing ideas at code and hoping it works,” he said. “I feel like I can learn a lot of problem-solving skills in computer science.”

Fellow Crocus Plains student Danil Buzhor said he’s interested in pursuing a career in math-related programming like artificial intelligence or doing back-end work for things like servers.

“I like that we have to work fast and set priorities for what to do first,” he said.

For Volodymyr Smagytel — another Grade 12 Crocus Plains student — the exciting part of working with computers is working in a sandbox with endless possibilities.

Vincent Massey student Leyton Gouldie said he appreciates that when there’s a problem with a computer, it’s usually user error.

“If it doesn’t work, it’s because you’re doing something wrong,” Gouldie said. “And then you can fix it and every time you do it, it will be repeatable.

His classmate, Sydney Komanac, said her interest is in writing code and designing things.

“It’s nice to see how other people write code,” Komanac said. “Normally you don’t do that, you work by yourself.”

After the competition ended, students were scheduled to receive a tour of the university’s facilities and get guest lectures on topics like 3D modelling software from current and former faculty and graduates.

Brandon University computer science professor Ashraf Abdelbar said the high school event is similar to an annual worldwide competition university students participate in every year called the International Collegiate Programming Contest.

In his tenure at the university, he said he has had teams advance to the world final of the international contest four times.

“This is a way of really feeling out whether this is something you want to pursue,” he said of the high school competition.

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