About the NCSS Challenge

Learn to program while you compete!

The School of IT at the University of Sydney is running a programming challenge for high school students over 5 weeks in term 3, 2010 - starting on Monday 2nd August.

Unlike existing competitions, the NCSS Challenge is designed to cater for both beginners and advanced students. Each week, a set of notes for either in-class or self-directed learning will be distributed to participants via email and online. A set of challenge questions testing this material will also be distributed. Each week's challenge set will range from relatively easy to extremely challenging allowing beginners to progress at their own rate whilst extending gifted students. The challenges will increase in complexity as more and more programming concepts are covered over the 5 weeks.

If you would like to take part, please register.

Participants will have a week to submit their solutions to the challenge website where they will be automatically marked. A full set of correct solutions, hints and commentary about each challenge will be distributed in the following week. Points will be awarded according to the difficulty of the challenges. Late submissions will be accepted for automatic marking but no points will be awarded. Some solutions may also be manually marked for design and style. The challenge website will show the leader board for individuals and schools.

This is an ideal opportunity for enthusiastic novice and experienced students to gain exposure to programming. The challenge is open to all Australian high school students, although it is most suited to Year 10/11 students and will develop students' programming skills for their major software projects. Teachers are welcome to register as non-competitors to gain more programming experience - ideal after attending a Teach Python workshop.

Registration costs $15 per participant for each stream (incl GST). The embedded stream requires access to special hardware that we supply, which costs an additional $85 (incl GST) and can be shared among a small group of students. Students working at home will need to buy their own board. The hardware cost is subsidised by sponsors (the actual board cost is $175).

Payment is cheque or money order to the School of IT. Cheques and money orders should be made payable to 'The University of Sydney'. The University's ABN is 15 211 513 464. Please send your cheque or money order, including the names of registrants, to:

Ms Weiying Ho
NCSS Programming Challenge
School of IT (J12)
University of Sydney NSW 2006