The University Interscholastic League will be hosting the 14th ANNUAL UIL CAPITAL CONFERENCE in Austin on the UT campus on July 9th and 10th.  This conference is designed to allow teachers and UIL Academic coordinators to discuss the UIL Academic Competitions and the rules, procedures, and contest of the individual competitions.   The conference will have a 2 day Java workshop and a PC^2 workshop.

If you are at the Capital Conference, stop by and chat as I will have a booth setup somewhere on site with information about  contest preparation materials and curriculum materials for the upcoming school year and UIL Academic season.  I will have some cool giveaways, sample materials, and demos running.

I will also be making a stop of at the Salt Lick for the world’s best barbecue.  If you are ever in the Austin area, you have to drive out to Driftwood and eat the original Salt Lick Location.  It is amazing stuff.

Follow up – The Capital Conference was great!  I saw lots of people and had a great time.  Thanks to all that stopped by to chat.   The BBQ at the Salt Lick was world class as usual.

UIL Capital Conference

Floppy Disks Sentenced to Death

Gasp!  The Horror!
What shall we ever do with no floppy drives and floppy disks?
I really was unaware that companies were still making floppies, but apparently they are still being produced.

I took my Computer Science team to a UIL Regional Computer Science contest and we had to submit our solutions on floppy disks.  I was quite appalled to say the least and I had to search for days to find floppies and drives.  It was like going back in time.  The contest was held at a University which made it even more ironic.  None of my laptops or PCs have floppy drives.

For those hosting high school contests, PC^2 is the only way to go.  Forget the disks and USB drives and use a Computer Science solution to solve a Computer Science problem.   We host a contest here in the Houston area and we use PC^2.  The UIL State Computer Science meet here in Texas will use PC^2 this year and we are all very happy about that.

So – glad to see the floppies are being killed off.  It is a long overdue death!

High School Computer Science season is just about to officially begin here in Texas as the UIL District Academic Meet is about to kick off.  Computer Science Education in the state of Texas owes quite a bit of gratitute to UIL and the UIL Academic Contents.  UIL Academic Competitions provide the venue for academic areas to compete and without them, Computer Science in Texas might likely be about as dead as it is in most other states.  As UIL has a Computer Science contest, many schools have classes or at least teams in order to be a part of the UIL contest and to ensure that their respective school has entries in all events.  This is very important as many Computer Science programs have grown from these seeds of competition.

The UIL Computer Science contest is a great contest and one that other states could model.   The contest consists of a 40 question multiple choice test and a 12 problem two-hour programming contest.  Teams compete and consist of 4 members.  3 members of the team program and all 4 take the written test.

I have been the sponsor of the Computer Science team and club at every high school at which I have taught.  The Computer Science program has grown at every school at which I have taught and part of that can be attributed to the fact that we take teams to contests in Texas all year long as well as hosting our own contest.  Students love to compete and want to belong to a winning tradition.   Once the tradition is established, students start to pour in.  Currently, there are over 450 students in Computer Science at my school and many of them are in the program as they want to compete and be the best.

Most of the Texas high school programming contests use PC^2 as their contest system.

Solving the P-NP Puzzler

1 Million To Solve the P-NP Problem

What is P and NP?

P vs NP – The Minesweeper Problem

I have discussed this with my students and think the whole scenario is very interesting.
This is similar to the Netflix challenge on which I have made prior posts.

Netflix Contest Ends – New Contest Begins

We have read several articles in my classes about this contest.
It was cool to see the contest end and the winners announced.

More Info on the Netflix Winner

In Texas, we have lots of Computer Science contests – Texas CS Contest List.  I find contests very worthwhile and fun.  My students typically feel the same way.  We typically attend 8 – 10 contests per year and host a contest at my high school in the spring.  If you are looking for a way to get more students excited about Computer Science, consider hosting a contest and getting other area schools to do the same.  I have found contests to be a very quick way to boost enrollment, especially once you establish a winning tradition.  All students want to be a part of a winner! Once you get a few contests or even a single contest going, other schools will join in and before you know it there will be more contests than you will have time to attend.  A typical Saturday contest in the Houston area would have around 80 teams of 3 students with 15-20 different schools attending.
The UIL Computer Science Contest is a state-wide contest run by the University Interscholastic League.
This Texas-based contest is very well done and would be a great model for any state wanting to get contests going.