<\/a>
\nEach year Digi-Key<\/a> (a major catalogue\/on-line vendor of electronic components several hours north of here) hosts a very nice programming and problem solving competition<\/a> for several regional schools. They obviously see it as a valuable computing and PR exercise as they really lay out the red carpet for us each year, including paying for the hotel stay, tons of food, and nifty prizes. A week ago Friday (21 Oct 2005) was our fourth time to participate, and the for the third year running we had a team place in the top three (out of 17 teams). In fact, of the six teams that have competed in the last three years, no team has done worse than fifth and four of the six have place second or third. (The first year we competed was odd because the students had to use a language and programming environment they were completely unfamiliar with.) The action shot below shows the team that placed third: Declarative Non-statement, featuring (l to r) Matt, Scott, Tyler and Jake.<\/p>\n

<\/a>
\nThis year the winning team (from U of M Duluth) blew everyone away with 367 points. The range from second to fourth, though, was only 27.5 points (279.5, 264.5, and 252), and then another big drop to fifth with 195 points. Only 12.5 points separated our two teams, so it was definitely a tight finish.<\/p>\n

From a teaching standpoint it’s a nice contest because they mix a lot of different skills and activities (short and long programming problems, word\/math problems, engineering puzzles, etc.) so it’s clearly about problem solving instead of “just hacking”. And from a departmental standpoint it’s a cool event because we get money if the teams do well. Every member of the third place team, for example, gets a $100 gift certificate at Best Buy, and the discipline gets a check for $600 – w00t! Last year, when our teams placed 2nd and 3rd, we received $2400 on the backs of our students’ success :-).<\/p>\n

Congratulations to both our teams on another fine year! Now we’re in the chaos of prepping for the ACM regional competition<\/a>. No money in this one, but much tougher competition so more prestige. The top team or two in the region (probably out of over 150 teams) will get to go to the International Finals (in San Antonio this year) in the Spring, which is a pretty sweet deal. UMM<\/a> had a team make the finals in 1998, and have had numerous teams in the top 20 over the years, so on any given day…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Each year Digi-Key (a major catalogue\/on-line vendor of electronic components several hours north of here) hosts a very nice programming and problem solving competition for several regional schools. They obviously see it as a valuable computing and PR exercise as they really lay out the red carpet for us each year, including paying for the … Continue reading “Another fine showing at Digi-Key”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_hide_featured_image":false,"_jetpack_featured_image_duplicate_dismissed":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-253","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-computing","category-education"],"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p90sy-45","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":false,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":540,"url":"https:\/\/UnhinderedByTalent.com\/Phi\/archives\/2007\/04\/20\/umm-unofficially-rocks\/","url_meta":{"origin":253,"position":0},"title":"UMM (unofficially) rocks!","author":"Nic McPhee","date":"20 Apr 07","format":false,"excerpt":"We just got back from the MICS programming contest, and it looks like one of our teams took first, with another placing 8th out of 42 teams. (These are unofficial results, but I'm pretty sure these are solid.) Huzzah! One of our teams took first at the MICS contest this\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Computing"","block_context":{"text":"Computing","link":"https:\/\/UnhinderedByTalent.com\/Phi\/archives\/category\/computing\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Victory!!!","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/farm1.static.flickr.com\/85\/276227701_fab9b7d6e9_m.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":404,"url":"https:\/\/UnhinderedByTalent.com\/Phi\/archives\/2006\/11\/28\/umm-students-bringing-in-the-big-bucks\/","url_meta":{"origin":253,"position":1},"title":"UMM students bringing in the big bucks!","author":"Nic McPhee","date":"28 Nov 06","format":false,"excerpt":"Presenting trophy and check, originally uploaded by Nic's events. I never got around to posting this at the time, but back in October one of our teams (The Algonauts) from UMM took first in the annual Collegiate Computing Competition hosted by the fine folks at Digi-Key. The students won tons\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Computing"","block_context":{"text":"Computing","link":"https:\/\/UnhinderedByTalent.com\/Phi\/archives\/category\/computing\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":252,"url":"https:\/\/UnhinderedByTalent.com\/Phi\/archives\/2005\/10\/22\/good-grief-the-entire-applications-folder-got-wiped\/","url_meta":{"origin":253,"position":2},"title":"Good grief! The entire Applications folder got wiped!","author":"Nic McPhee","date":"22 Oct 05","format":false,"excerpt":"Or further reasons why I hate computers... Sub-Evil Boy got a new computer game while I was away at the Digi-Key competition (more on that in a later post). Unfortunately something weird happened in the install process (we'll probably never know the details) and it wiped the entire Applications folder\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Computing"","block_context":{"text":"Computing","link":"https:\/\/UnhinderedByTalent.com\/Phi\/archives\/category\/computing\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"He always wanted to be a dog when he grew up","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/static.flickr.com\/31\/53048272_71311108e4_m.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":182,"url":"https:\/\/UnhinderedByTalent.com\/Phi\/archives\/2005\/06\/21\/my-id-gotten-rusty\/","url_meta":{"origin":253,"position":3},"title":"My, I’d gotten rusty","author":"Nic McPhee","date":"21 Jun 05","format":false,"excerpt":"I competed in a TopCoder programming competition for the first time in way too long, and it showed. I didn't completely tank (I've certainly done worse), but it took too darn long to find some of those neurons and get them to fire. I hadn't actually competed since last October,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Computing"","block_context":{"text":"Computing","link":"https:\/\/UnhinderedByTalent.com\/Phi\/archives\/category\/computing\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Rusting metal parts at Helmshore Mills Textile Museum","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.thomasmcphee.com\/html\/modules\/gallery\/albums\/album24\/IMG_3428.thumb.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":218,"url":"https:\/\/UnhinderedByTalent.com\/Phi\/archives\/2005\/08\/20\/got-another-topcoder-open-t-shirt\/","url_meta":{"origin":253,"position":4},"title":"Got another TopCoder Open t-shirt!","author":"Nic McPhee","date":"20 Aug 05","format":false,"excerpt":"I've just managed to get my third TopCoder Open t-shirt in a row! Each year's Open runs through several phases culminating in a handfull of far better contest programmers than me going to some nifty place to compete for 10's of thousands of dollars in prizes. Here in the early\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Computing"","block_context":{"text":"Computing","link":"https:\/\/UnhinderedByTalent.com\/Phi\/archives\/category\/computing\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"It doesn't add up anymore","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/photos21.flickr.com\/30934239_b299e6ace2_m.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":651,"url":"https:\/\/UnhinderedByTalent.com\/Phi\/archives\/2007\/09\/17\/a-different-kind-of-computing-curriculum-thoughts-on-an-interview-with-smalltalk-dave\/","url_meta":{"origin":253,"position":5},"title":"A different kind of computing curriculum? – Thoughts on an interview with Smalltalk Dave","author":"Nic McPhee","date":"17 Sep 07","format":false,"excerpt":"I finally got around to listening to this interview with Smalltalk Dave Thomas (as opposed to Ruby's Dave Thomas) from the Agile Toolkit Podcast. There's a lot of interesting stuff in this puppy, and curriculum design would be a totally different animal if more academics were listening to people like\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Computing"","block_context":{"text":"Computing","link":"https:\/\/UnhinderedByTalent.com\/Phi\/archives\/category\/computing\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/UnhinderedByTalent.com\/Phi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/253","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/UnhinderedByTalent.com\/Phi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/UnhinderedByTalent.com\/Phi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/UnhinderedByTalent.com\/Phi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/UnhinderedByTalent.com\/Phi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=253"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/UnhinderedByTalent.com\/Phi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/253\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/UnhinderedByTalent.com\/Phi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=253"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/UnhinderedByTalent.com\/Phi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=253"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/UnhinderedByTalent.com\/Phi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=253"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}