Computer Science Contest

36th Annual Computer Problem Solving Contest!

April 26, 2024 - Harrisburg Campus

Participating schools are to be represented by teams of no more than three students each. Our facilities restrict us to the accommodation of no more than twenty (20) teams; however, we urge schools to submit two teams, a first team and an alternate team. After all registrations for first team entries have been processed, we will accept alternate teams from schools submitting them, based on earliest online registration time stamp. Registration is now online. Make sure you receive an email confirming your registration.

The contest will consist of five to seven problems from a variety of applications. Solutions will be scored according to the following three criteria:

Output - Is it completely correct and functional?
Style - Is it structured, efficient, and fluid?
Documentation - Is the program easy to understand?

Each team will be required to provide their own computer and a grounded extension cord. The use of the internet, manuals or textual materials of any kind will not be allowed! We will provide pencils and scratch paper for the teams to use for the design and coding of their solutions prior to solution implementation. Students will be allowed to implement the solutions to the problems in either BASIC, Visual Basic, Pascal, C/C++, Java, or Python.

Prizes to be awarded include:

A school trophy for the first place team
School plaques for each of the second, third, and fourth place teams
Individual plaques for each of the team members on those teams earning school awards.

For more information, please contact Matthew Pragel, HACC associate professor of mathematics, at 717-780-2364 or mepragel@hacc.edu.

Registration is open Feb. 1 - March 29, 2024 or until space is filled.

Contest Agenda

2024 Computer Problem Solving Contest
April 26, 2024

Time	Activity
8:30-9 a.m.	Arrival, registration and set-up
9-9:10 a.m.	General meeting for all participants
9:10-11:30 a.m.	Computer contest
11:15-11:30 a.m.	Begin submission of contest materials
11:30-11:45 a.m.	HACC Admissions presentation

Contest Criteria for Evaluating Submissions

This contains a description of the criteria to be used for evaluating the programs submitted by the student teams; these criteria are based on the current literature and thought concerning desirable aspects of good programming style.

Programs will be evaluated according to the following criteria:

	Rules	Scoring
Output	The results must be correct as specified by the problem definition; additionally, sufficient sample runs should be submitted to verify that correctness of results is maintained under all possible conditions. Page headers, column headers, and descriptive text should be provided so that the meaning of the results can be understood by interested parties with little difficulty. Output data should be formatted for a "clean" appearance and readability.	20 points
Style	The code and underlying algorithm should be as uncomplicated as possible; that is, simplistic, clear, and direct. Exotic algorithms are to be avoided. Each of the functional units required for obtaining the solution to the problem should be coded as physically distinct units; each of which will perform one step of the algorithm. The logical flow of execution should indicate an awareness of structured design with minimal use of the branching construct (GOTOs).	20 points
Internal Documentation	The purpose of the program should be stated clearly and concisely at the beginning of the program. Meaningful variable names should be used and a variable table should be provided that gives the name of each variable used and the information that each variable represents. Comments should be included to indicate the major logic breaks and to describe the purpose of each functional unit encountered at each logic break.	20 points

2019 Winners

Place	High School	Winners
First	Middletown High School	Blue Raiders: Christian Burke-Bowman Ryder Webster Justin Yohn
Second	Conrad Weiser High School	First Team: Cody Reeser Adam Reifsnyder Van Wirebach
Third	Conrad Weiser High School	Alternate Team: Oliver De Leon Nate Rickert Mark Yazemboski
Fourth	Plymouth Whitemarsh High School	PWHS Team 2: Fatima Alsammak Matt Dolin Jake Valentine

TOP TEAMS

1. Middletown High School – Blue Raiders
2. Conrad Weiser High School – First Team
3. Conrad Weiser High School – Alternate Team
4. Plymouth Whitemarsh High School – Team 2
5. Emmaus High School – Team #2
6. Hershey High School – Team 1
7. Plymouth Whitemarsh High School – Team 1
8. Central Dauphin High School – CD-2
9. Ephrata High School – Mountaineers II
10. Emmaus High School – Team #1
11. Annville-Cleona High School – Red1
12. Ephrata High School – Mountaineers

2018 Winners

Place	High School	Winners
First	Plymouth Whitemarsh High School	PWHS A: David Garcia Hana Kenworthy Ben Lubas
Second	Emmaus High School	Binary Bees: Bradley Klemick Millan Patel Tien Pham
Third	Hershey High School	Team #1: Seth Corbin Levent Batakci Maxwell Potter
Fourth	Ephrata High School	Mountaineers A: Caleb McKinney Colin Robson Nick Hoopes

TOP TEN TEAMS

1. Plymouth Whitemarsh High School – PWHS A
2. Emmaus High School – Binary Bees
3. Hershey High School – Team 1
4. Ephrata High School – Mountaineers A
5. Elizabethtown High School – Team 1
6. Elizabethtown High School – Team 2
7. Hempfield High School
8. Ephrata High School – Mountaineers B
9. Emmaus High School – Hornets
10. Hershey High School – Team 2

2016 Winners

Place	High School
First	Emmaus High School
Second	Emmaus High School
Third	Conrad Weiser High School
Fourth	Hershey High School

1984-2014 School Winners

Year	First Place	Second Place	Third Place	Fourth Place
2014	Plymouth Whitemarsh	Hershey	Emmaus	Elizabethtown Area
2013	Plymouth Whitemarsh	Plymouth Whitemarsh	Elizabethtown Area	New Oxford
2012	Conrad Weiser	Elizabethtown Area	Conrad Weiser	Hershey
2011	New Oxford	Emmaus	Annville-Cleona	West Perry
2010	Annville-Cleona	New Oxford	Plymouth Whitemarsh	Hempfield
2009	New Oxford	Annville-Cleona	West Perry	Conrad Weiser and Emmaus (Tie)
2008	West Perry	Lebanon	Hershey	Emmaus
2007	Emmaus	Conrad Weiser	West Perry	Emmaus
2006	Susquenita	Annville-Cleona	Conrad Weiser	Conrad Weiser
2005	Conrad Weiser	Hershey	Elizabethtown	Hershey
2004	Elizabethtown	Hempfield	Conrad Weiser	West Perry
2003	Hempfield	Cumberland Valley	West Perry	Elizabethtown
2002	West Perry	Cumberland Valley	Hempfield	Conrad Weiser
2001	Conrad Weiser	West Perry	Cumberland Valley	Cumberland Valley
2000	Cumberland Valley	Elizabethtown	Cumberland Valley	Conrad Weiser and West Perry (Tie)
1999	West Perry	Cumberland Valley	East Pennsboro	Conrad Weiser
1998	Elizabethtown	West Perry	Elizabethtown	Cumberland Valley
1997	Ephrata	West Perry	Elizabethtown	Annville-Cleona
1996	Cumberland Perry AVTS	Elizabethtown and West Perry (Tie)		Annville-Cleona
1995	West Perry	Cumberland Valley	Cumberland Perry AVTS	Ephrata
1994	Cumberland Valley	Hempfield	West Perry	Cumberland Valley
1993	Cumberland Valley	Cumberland Valley	Lower Dauphin	Lebanon
1992	Cumberland Valley	Lebanon	Shippensburg	West Perry
1991	Elizabethtown	Bishop McDevitt	Lower Dauphin	Bishop McDevitt
1990	Bishop McDevitt	West Perry	Red Land	Bishop McDevitt
1989	West Perry	Elizabethtown	Cumberland Valley	Bishop McDevitt
1988	Hershey	Hempfield	Cumberland Valley	West Perry
1987	Elizabethtown	Red Land	Cumberland Valley	Hempfield
1986	Solanco	Central Dauphin	York Suburban	Cumberland Valley
1985	Solanco	Cumberland Valley	Mechanicsburg	Central Dauphin
1984	Red Land	Lower Dauphin	Camp Hill	Mechanicsburg