Primary and high schools can take part in the SA Computer Olympiad’s 2018 Coding Olympiad, a problem solving contest for pupils who can write code.
The Olympiad aims to influence pupils to grow their coding skills.
The first round takes place at the schools from Monday August 13 to Friday August 17.
Pupils have to solve three problems in an hour and those who perform well are invited to a second round, which also takes place at school, on Wednesday September 5 when they will have one and a half hours to write programs to solve four problems.
The top 10 to 15 finalists then compete at the Standard Bank Global Leadership Centre in Johannesburg from Saturday September 29 to Sunday September 30, with a gala awards dinner on Monday October 1. All expenses are paid. Olympiad manager, Michael Cameron says: “All who enter can have fun working out the answers. The challenge is to write a simple program to make the computer do the hard work. To succeed you first solve a logic problem and then code up a program to solve the problem (any computer language for the first round).”
Any school can take part and entry is free.
Schools can visit www.olympiad.org.za to register. Also known as the Computer Programming Olympiad, this contest has run since 1984. Four of this year’s finalists will be fully sponsored to compete internationally in Azerbaijan in 2019.
