On Saturday, June 11th, LoudounCodes teamed with Loudoun Valley High School to offer our First High School Programming Challenge.

Five teams of 3 students were given 9 programming challenges and 3 hours to answer as many as possible. Teams were ranked on the number of challenges solved, the number of times solutions were submitted, and the time to solve each challenge. Like the ACM HSPC competitions, teams received a colored balloon for each correct solution.

Over $350 in prizes were given away to the winning teams, including gift cards from Best Buy, Outback Steakhouse, Target, and Starbucks. We also provided fuel for teenagers - pizza and sodas.

“This event really came together”, said Jose Rodriguez, Computer Math teacher at Loudoun Valley High School and sponsor of LVHS’ award-winning STEM club. “We selected from a bunch of questions Mr. Bock provided, announced it to the students a few weeks out, and were amazed at the participation we had so close to the end of the school year.”

“I really enjoyed the rush of solving logic problems at 9 in the morning. It was definitely an efficient morning wake-up.”, said Emily Haggard, a rising Senior and member of a winning team.

“I was really happy with how well this first experience went.”, said David Bock, TEALS volunteer at LVHS and Director of LoudounCodes. “This is great practice for building out next year’s team for participation in the regional ACM HSPC contests at several nearby Universities”.

If you are a teacher or parent in Loudoun County and would like assistance organizing a similar event at your school, contact info@loudouncodes.org. We can provide the questions, the judges, and even the funds for prizes and pizza. You just need to provide the classroom, the students, and a date.

If you represent an organization that would like to financially sponsor a competition, contact info@loudouncodes.org. This competition cost about $420 including prizes and pizza; everything else was done with volunteer effort.

If you are a software engineering professional and would like to hellp judge, contact info@loudouncodes.org. We’ll tell you all the behind-the-scenes info about the questions, what we look for in the solutions, etc.