IrishMum Posted July 16, 2013 Share Posted July 16, 2013 Grok Learning posted on my blog about this challenge, after looking into it I have signed my two older boys up ( 11 and 14), I thought I would post here in case anyone is intrested: The NCSS Challenge is an online programming competition that runs for 5 weeks from Monday the 5th of August, 2013. Unlike other competitions, we don't expect students to know how to program in advance, but teach them to program as they compete. Each week, a set of notes for self-directed learning is released, along with a set of challenge questions testing this material. The questions range in difficulty to allow beginners to progress at their own rate while still extending gifted students. The challenges increase in complexity as more and more programming concepts are covered over the 5 weeks. There are 3 streams offered: Beginners, designed for students with no programming experience; Intermediate, for students with some programming experience; and Advanced, designed to stretch and challenge the best students. In 2012, over 4200 students across Australia and New Zealand participated in the Challenge, solving problems from cryptography to computational linguistics, generating Twitter poetry to estimating the speed of light using marshmallows and a microwave. Participants submit their solutions to our web-based intelligent auto-marking system which is designed to lead the student through solving the problem. Students can get help from university tutors using the message system or asking a question on the moderated forums. As well as a place to get hints on solving questions, for the 5 weeks of the Challenge the 'General Discussion' forums are abuzz with passionate discussion on topics from computer games to designing efficient algorithms. Enrolment in a Challenge stream costs $AU20, and is open to all students worldwide. An annual subscription to all Grok Learning content, including all three streams of the NCSS Challenge, costs $AU30 (school discount rate, including Homeschool students). For more information, see groklearning.com/challenge or email challenge@ncss.edu.au Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TarynB Posted July 17, 2013 Share Posted July 17, 2013 I think my DS would enjoy this too. Thank you for sharing! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MomsintheGarden Posted July 17, 2013 Share Posted July 17, 2013 IrishMum, do you know if there are any prizes or certificates for placement in the competition? Will the student know how he/she placed? Thanks! GardenMom Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
IrishMum Posted July 17, 2013 Author Share Posted July 17, 2013 IrishMum, do you know if there are any prizes or certificates for placement in the competition? Will the student know how he/she placed? Thanks! GardenMom MonsintheGarden, I don't think there are any prizes, but I have sent a mail to ask about cerfificates. About placement, I took this straight from their site: Each stream of the NCSS Challenge has its own leaderboard where you can see how you're doing against all of your peers. Compete for glory on a stage dominated by the hardest working. But don't worry, you're only competing against those in your stream. Each question answered correctly gets you points that improve your ranking. Bringing you closer to global programming domination. HTH Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
IrishMum Posted July 17, 2013 Author Share Posted July 17, 2013 I got a reply form Grok Learning. There are no prizes (other than fame and glory) but students strive to achieving a spot on the leaderboards. We also organise certificates for all the students who participate, and give them a breakdown on how they performed relative to their peers. HTH Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
IrishMum Posted July 17, 2013 Author Share Posted July 17, 2013 Bumping for anyone who may be intrested. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MomsintheGarden Posted July 18, 2013 Share Posted July 18, 2013 Thanks for answering my questions, IrishMum! So, what streams are everyone's students doing? If ds signs up, it will probably be for the intermediate. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
IrishMum Posted July 18, 2013 Author Share Posted July 18, 2013 Thanks for answering my questions, IrishMum! So, what streams are everyone's students doing? If ds signs up, it will probably be for the intermediate. My boys have done some coding with Scratch, and Python for Kids so I put then in the intermediate level. Has your ds done some coding? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MomsintheGarden Posted July 18, 2013 Share Posted July 18, 2013 My boys have done some coding with Scratch, and Python for Kids so I put then in the intermediate level. Has your ds done some coding?My son has done some coding in JAVA, which he learned mainly from the Teen Coder curriculum. He's worked on several projects for fun - a logic simulator and a couple of games. He's really enjoyed programming. We're trying to decide if the NCSS challenge would be a good fit for him. How did your boys learn Scratch and Python? What do you think of those languages? Do you know if they will be easy to pick up by someone who already knows some JAVA? Thanks! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
IrishMum Posted July 18, 2013 Author Share Posted July 18, 2013 My son has done some coding in JAVA, which he learned mainly from the Teen Coder curriculum. He's worked on several projects for fun - a logic simulator and a couple of games. He's really enjoyed programming. We're trying to decide if the NCSS challenge would be a good fit for him. How did your boys learn Scratch and Python? What do you think of those languages? Do you know if they will be easy to pick up by someone who already knows some JAVA? Thanks! They both started in Java with code academy, it sparked their intrest and moved on to use Super Scratch Programming Adventure, review, and Python for Kids, review. We loved both these books. No Starch Press offered us Realm of Racket to review, so now DS11 is learning Racket, and wants to move onto Lisp when he is finished. I wouldn't bother with Scratch if I were you, it is a very easy beginner language, lots of fun, but then again both mine still play around with it, so maybe your son would like it to play with. I can't see any problem for your son learning Python after Java, it is good to be able to code it various languages to be a good hacker. Java and Python share a common ancestor, they are both imperative programming languages. There are significant similarities between them, so knowing some Java would help with learning Python. The real benefit of taking the NCSS challenge is that by seeing the same subject via a slightly different language it will drive home the fundamental concepts. HTH Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
IrishMum Posted July 30, 2013 Author Share Posted July 30, 2013 Bumbing for anyone who might be interested :) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
serendipitous journey Posted July 30, 2013 Share Posted July 30, 2013 IrishMum, thanks for posting this & for bumping it along! A. is still a bit young (and with no keyboarding under his belt yet) for this, but the Scratch and Python resources you gave in post 10 above seem right up our alley. I've been wanting to start both programming and keyboarding this year & working through Scratch games should make the keyboarding more fun to learn ;) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
IrishMum Posted July 30, 2013 Author Share Posted July 30, 2013 IrishMum, thanks for posting this & for bumping it along! A. is still a bit young (and with no keyboarding under his belt yet) for this, but the Scratch and Python resources you gave in post 10 above seem right up our alley. I've been wanting to start both programming and keyboarding this year & working through Scratch games should make the keyboarding more fun to learn ;) You are welcome! Scratch is so much fun, hope your son loves it :) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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