High school and college students tested their computer skills during John Brown University's Programming Competition on Saturday.
Fourteen teams, composed of 29 students from the Bentonville, Fayetteville and Springdale high schools and 21 JBU students, participated in the competition, according to Tim Gilmour, assistant professor of engineering.
JBU has held the competition four years in a row for JBU engineering students who have already taken computer programming and local high school students enrolled in Advanced Placement computer science class, Gilmour said.
Students were challenged to answer a series of eight problems within a span of six hours which required them to use math and logic and to work together as a team. Problem topics range from robotics to cancer treatments and are similar to problems that job candidates may be asked to solve when interviewing for tech firms such as Google, Gilmour said. The teams that succeed in solving the most problems win cash prizes and JBU scholarships.
The competition also gives students a chance to have fun while they are learning and gives high school students a taste of what it's like to be on a college campus, he said.
Jared Miller, a sophomore at JBU, said that Saturday's competition was his first. The competition gives students a taste of real-life work experience because they have to work as part of a team to solve problems while under a time crunch, he said.
Miller was sitting at a table of JBU students eating pizza during the lunch break. The competition is also a good thing to put on a resume when going into a software field, said JBU student Matthew Stoering, another first-time competitor sharing the table with Miller.
JBU student Kyle Crouse, in his third competition, described programming as the most basic form of problem solving. He explained that programming is teaching a dumb computer that does nothing on its own each little step of what the programmer wants it to do. JBU student Zach Lee, also an experienced competitor, described the competition problems as brain teasers and riddles.
Bates Yoakum, a junior at Fayetteville High School, said the competition was a lot harder than the problems they had done in computer science class.
"It's challenging us to use our abilities well," he said.
Yoakum said he is still trying to decide if he wants a career in technology but he is tempted by the number of jobs available. He is thinking about attending JBU and it's definitely one of his top five schools, he said.
Giana Parmer, a junior at Fayetteville High School, was one of only a handful of female faces at the competition. She said she took the computer science class because she wanted to do "cool things" with her Tumbler account. She has found that programming is very difficult but also very rewarding.
Parmer said she was enjoying the competition and learning a lot. She said it was giving her a better understanding of computer science.
"Things I didn't understand, I had to clarify in the competition," she said.
Results
JBU students swept the top three places in the competition. Team "Brogrammers" placed first. They solved five of the eight problems and won $20 each. Team members were Benjamin Morris, Mark Belvardi and Josiah Jackson.
Team "['hip', 'hip']" won second place, solving three problems each and winning $10 each. Team members were Jonathan Newton, Matthew Stoering and Jared Miller.
The third place team was "Bitecraft." They also solved three problems and won $5 each. Team members were JBU students Joe Price, Alex McChristian and Dante Duran, and home school student Caleb Place.
Caleb Place was the winner of the $1,000 JBU scholarship. Jacob Laukoto, Clayton Townsend and Austin Kreulach, members of the fourth place team of Bentonville, each won a $500 JBU scholarship.
General News on 02/10/2016