Computer science olympiad: exploring computer science through competition

ABSTRACT

Generating interest in specialized areas of Computer Science (CS) is one of the goals of the department of Computer and Information Science at Spelman College as with most departments. Achieving this goal in a new, exciting, and innovative manner provided the inspiration to establish the Spelman College Computer Science Olympiad (SC CS Olympiad). The SC CS Olympiad is patterned after the Olympics athletic event. Students participate in the Olympiad as a part of a team as with the Olympics. In addition, there are several events for competition as there are in the Olympics. The events are designed to expose students to the interesting breadth of CS over several days. In this paper, the events are in the following categories: Cryptography, Robotics, Website Design, Hardware and Software Integration, and Programming. Teams use their CS knowledge and problem-solving skills to complete hands-on exercises in each area. Each teams receives points based on the quality of their results from the exercise. In this paper, we present the implementation, results, and future directions of the Spelman College Computer Science Olympiad.

REFERENCES

• 1: ACM, ACM International Collegiate Programming Contest: Fact Sheet, December 2006.
• 2: AAAI, AAAI 2007 Robot Competition and Exhibition, http://www.aaai.org/home.html.
• 3: Lego Mindstorms®, http://www.legomindstorms.com/
• 4: Microsoft FrontPage®, http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/frontpage/.
• 5: Adobe Dreamweaver®, http://www.adobe.com/products/dreamweaver/

INDEX TERMS

Primary Classification:
  K. Computing Milieux
  K.3 COMPUTERS AND EDUCATION
      K.3.1 Computer Uses in Education
          Subjects: Collaborative learning

Additional Classification:
  K. Computing Milieux
  K.3 COMPUTERS AND EDUCATION
      K.3.2 Computer and Information Science Education
          Subjects: Information systems education; Computer science education

General Terms:
Algorithms, Design, Experimentation, Languages, Security

Keywords:
competition, computer programming, computer science education, hardware, olympiad, retention, robotics, software, world wide web