Colorado Academy computer science students tested their talents and brought home honors this spring.
American Computer Science League (ACSL)
For students who are interested in coding competitions and growing their coding skills beyond the classroom, ACSL is a CA club that pushes students to attack college-level computer science topics. CA had a very strong group of students this year. A record four students, Seniors Alena Holbert, Richter Jordaan, Alex Kim, and Will Smart, tied for the top number of points scored in the four contests held.
Mines Programming Competition
Colorado School of Mines sponsored its Second Annual Coding Competition in April. For the second year in a row, CA coding students were at the top of the pack. Seniors Alex Kim and Peter Schmid, and Sophomore Levi Pinkert placed second; Seniors Alena Holbert and Hagen Hall placed fifth out of 23 teams.
Lockheed Martin CodeQuest
The Lockheed Martin CodeQuest competition is for serious coders. The competition asks students to solve problems using Java, Python, C, C++, or VB.net coding languages. Students can switch between computer languages to solve a problem. Each problem carries a point value, with values increasing with problem difficulty. The goal is to earn as many points as possible in 2 ½ hours.
CA entered three teams in CodeQuest, two Advanced teams of Seniors (Sal Husain, Alena Holbert, and Richter Jordaan; Alex Kim, Peter Schmid, and Hagen Hall) and one Novice team. At the end of the day, the Novice team—Senior Claire Anderson and Sophomores Levi Pinkert and Evelyn Needham—brought home the trophy, placing third, the first time a CA Novice team has scored that high.
National Center for Women & Information Technology Awards
Several CA young women were honored at the National Center for Women & Information Technology (NCWIT) Awards for Aspirations in Computing Event. The event was held at the Colorado School of Mines. Junior Jasmine Bilir received her second National Award Honorable Mention, Senior Jane Doherty received her second Colorado Award, Sophomore Jordan Davidson also received a Colorado Award, and Junior Alex Foreman, Senior Aly Gallagher, and Sophomore Zoe Worrall all received Colorado Honorable Mention Awards.
The award winners were treated to an exhibition of School of Mines computer science student projects and robots, dinner, and talks from a variety of inspirational women speakers from the technology industry.