2009 Kentucky High and Middle School Team Programming Contest
Thursday, May 21, Lexington Rupp Arena and Convention Center
Organized by COmputer Science, University of Kentucky
Schedule: TBA PM
"Programming: It's Kentucky IT's future."

PROGRAMMING CONTEST -- DEVELOP YOUR FIRST VIDEO GAME May 21, 2009 -- Lexington, Rupp Arena

One of the objectives of the contest is to teach and promote programming. This year we have a new environment for the contest and a new set of problems. We have selected an attractive tool for doing it; it will be introduced at the contest so everyone has identical chances. The contest problems are related to video games but the theme for games is selected to attract students from the broad spectrum of interests, in particular some of them will relate to the ecological environment.

During the contest we will offer programming instructions and attractive contest problems for high and middle school students. This year we will have a new and challenging tasks. Participants will learn fundamentals of game design, learn basic game-development techniques, learn necessary programming skills and use them to create a fully functioning video game. Bring your laptops (Windows) and enthusiasm to work on interesting and challenging tasks. Everything else will be provided by the CS students and professionals from the University of Kentucky. In particular, we will help to install the contest environment and everything else what is needed (make sure to have all the information, such as login names, passwords, to allow for simple installations on your laptops.) This environment and the necessary instructions will be provided to all at the same time during the Contest.

Registration: Contact your STLP unit and Ms. Elaine Harrison, STLP Director.

Questions: email Dr. J.W. Jaromczyk at jurek@cs.uky.edu with Subject "high school programming contest".

Last Year 2008 Tasks -- can be used for practice

  1. Register!
  2. Learn about Draw a Fractal
    3. The homepage of the game is here.
    Program Manual is here.
    Language Manual is here.
    Two versions of the program are available. The applet version can be accessed here (or by clicking the applet menu.)
    The download version is here
    .
  3. Practice tasks and their Solutions

The contest involves UK students representing the Academic Alliance Microsoft Ambassador Program and the ACM and UPE student organizations.

Last Modified: April 30, 2008

With the endorsement from the STLP, the computer science and IT departments from Kentucky universities and colleges, specifically the Department of Computer Science of the University of Kentucky, organize a team programming contest for high school students who have interest in computer programming. The road to the finals, organized as a satellite event to the Kentucky STLP Conference that takes place in Lexington, starts with practice by potential student participants.

Recognizing the fact that currently not all schools can offer programming classes, the contest is designed to include students at different levels of experience with computers and programming. The focus is on skills essential to programming. However, no advanced programming is involved. In fact, anyone with some basic understanding of writing computer commands can participate and be successful in this contest. Moreover, a typical strong team is composed of a group of students with strengths in different areas such as Math, CS, Arts, or Physics.

The Contest will have at least two categories, both of them preceded with instruction before the contest or on the day of the contest. One of the categories is called Draw a Fractal and this page provides links to the system that will be used for this category during the contest. Additional categories will be announced later, possibly at the day of the contest. One of the categories will involve a computer game related programming. Among the possibilities Terrarium Farm and Alice Programming Alice.org are considered. Check it out. This is a harder category and will require more work if it is selected. Note: We will not use Terrarium or Alice in the 2009 contest.

Below you will find information about the Draw a Fractal category.

Draw a Fractal - using graphical software, Lev-Fractal, developed by one of the undergraduate students in the Department of Computer Science at the University of Kentucky especially for this contest. In this category, students use a programming language with a simple structure to generate pictures. For those interested, the language is based on the L-System proposed by Aristid Lindenmeyer to simulate biological growth. The process in this system is based on a recursive replacement of characters according to a set of rules called the grammar. Possible tasks are to write a program that generates pictures that match the patterns given to the contestants. Additionally, in the artistic category students are asked to generate pictures that will be judged by their artistic value, creativity, etc. A description for the Draw the Fractal category, in particular how to access the programs, is available at ??

The students and their advisor Dr. J.W. Jaromczyk and Paul Piwowarski from the Department of Computer Science, University of Kentucky, provide help, training, and sample contest problems. Please direct all general questions about the contest (teachers and students) to jurek@cs.uky.edu. Questions related to specific categories, such as Draw a Fractal should be directed to the person responsible for that category, as listed on the documentation pages.

Registration: to register click here.

Questions: email Dr. J.W. Jaromczyk at jurek@cs.uky.edu with Subject "high school programming contest".

Last Modified: April 30, 200r86