#128592 - The_Perfection - Sun May 13, 2007 6:42 am
On Thursday my friend and I partook in nation-wide programming competitions. He, someone you might recognize, (thegamefreak0134,) competed in VB.NET programming. I competed in C++ programming. Before I continue, let me give you a brief description of the organization in which we competed.
_ _ _
This competition is held by the BPA, or Business Professionals of America, organization. The events held range from administration to graphic design to programming to networking to speaking events and quite a bit more. There are three levels of competition: Region, State, and National. Naturally, to advance to the higher levels of competition one must place well in the preceding level. There are two major classifications as well that compete separately: secondary (high school) and post-secondary (college). We both belong to the former, and so competed with other high schoolers throughout the nation.
The programming competitions are all run the same way. There are 90 minutes to take a written test composed of 25 questions and write a program to the specifications provided. This is the same for the three major languages used in BPA competition: C++, Java (umm, ick), and VB.NET.
We took four students to compete from our small school, two in speaking events and two in programming events. Unfortunately, I do not know the workings of the speaking events. I believe it is something to the effect of a 10 minute preparation and then presenting the speech, but I honestly don't know.
_ _ _
gamefreak was told to write a program that checked the security level of a password and was told to use a class that inherited the controls from the textbox class. Unfortunately, he didn't know how to override the function that they wanted. He managed to get the logic working in his program, but was unable to encapsulate it in a class as desired.
I was given the task of making a Arabic to Roman Numeral converter using a class. I personally would have rather not used the class, (makes it easier to toss data around,) but none-the-less did it. The logic was simple enough and managed to get the program running beautifully right at the end of the time limit. The code was readable, but could have been much cleaner. (I would have cleaned it up too if it weren't for the time limit...) Anyhow, it worked wonderfully.
Our two speakers did very well. They both made it to finals, (the top 10,) in extemporaneous speech and prepared speech respectively.
_ _ _
thegamefreak0134 didn't place in the top ten. He says that he would laugh though if he happened to get eleventh like one of our speakers did last year.
Our extempt speaker did place in the top ten, but didn't place in the top three.
Our prepared speaker placed in the top ten and recieved second place. YAY!
And finally, there's me. I managed to place in the top ten. I also got second place.
Goes to show you how little everyone else knew.
I know that many of you in this community are several times more skilled than I am. And all of you I would like to thank. You guys and the tutorials and reference materials I've used have practically taught me how to program. The two foremost in my mind are Cearn and tepples, but I appreciate everything that all of you have done.
Thank you.
_ _ _
This competition is held by the BPA, or Business Professionals of America, organization. The events held range from administration to graphic design to programming to networking to speaking events and quite a bit more. There are three levels of competition: Region, State, and National. Naturally, to advance to the higher levels of competition one must place well in the preceding level. There are two major classifications as well that compete separately: secondary (high school) and post-secondary (college). We both belong to the former, and so competed with other high schoolers throughout the nation.
The programming competitions are all run the same way. There are 90 minutes to take a written test composed of 25 questions and write a program to the specifications provided. This is the same for the three major languages used in BPA competition: C++, Java (umm, ick), and VB.NET.
We took four students to compete from our small school, two in speaking events and two in programming events. Unfortunately, I do not know the workings of the speaking events. I believe it is something to the effect of a 10 minute preparation and then presenting the speech, but I honestly don't know.
_ _ _
gamefreak was told to write a program that checked the security level of a password and was told to use a class that inherited the controls from the textbox class. Unfortunately, he didn't know how to override the function that they wanted. He managed to get the logic working in his program, but was unable to encapsulate it in a class as desired.
I was given the task of making a Arabic to Roman Numeral converter using a class. I personally would have rather not used the class, (makes it easier to toss data around,) but none-the-less did it. The logic was simple enough and managed to get the program running beautifully right at the end of the time limit. The code was readable, but could have been much cleaner. (I would have cleaned it up too if it weren't for the time limit...) Anyhow, it worked wonderfully.
Our two speakers did very well. They both made it to finals, (the top 10,) in extemporaneous speech and prepared speech respectively.
_ _ _
thegamefreak0134 didn't place in the top ten. He says that he would laugh though if he happened to get eleventh like one of our speakers did last year.
Our extempt speaker did place in the top ten, but didn't place in the top three.
Our prepared speaker placed in the top ten and recieved second place. YAY!
And finally, there's me. I managed to place in the top ten. I also got second place.
Goes to show you how little everyone else knew.
I know that many of you in this community are several times more skilled than I am. And all of you I would like to thank. You guys and the tutorials and reference materials I've used have practically taught me how to program. The two foremost in my mind are Cearn and tepples, but I appreciate everything that all of you have done.
Thank you.