WINDHOEK
New ground was explored when the Namibia University of Science and Technology (NUST)’s Faculty of Computing and Informatics hosted an exciting two-day programming competition on August 5-6.
The competition, which is in its second year is an initiative of the faculty and is aimed at raising interest in programming. This year 11 teams participated: four university teams and seven high school teams.
Jan Möhr Secondary School, Karibib Private School, St George’s Diocesan School, Windhoek Technical High School (with two teams) and community-based organisation Physically Active Youth Enterprise (PAYE) contested the highly competitive high school category.
Coding was done over two days for the university teams and a day for the high school teams. The complexity of the questions and challenges differed from category to category, hence the duration of coding. The participants said the time provided was sufficient to finish their projects.
Perhaps the most notable team was Windhoek Technical High School girls’ team, that consisted of Grade 8 and 9 learners and only had few weeks to prepare for the competition, but managed to finish second behind Karibib Private School.
The competition’s organising committee co-chair, Joel Eelu, says this year’s competition differed slightly from that of last year, because of the composition of the teams and reckons the c questions were much more complex.
“This year the teams were mixed, consisting of at least one student from each level of study for the university teams. I also believe that the questions this year were much more hands-on and fascinating for the teams.”
Team Code Geeks and Karibib Private School won their respective categories.
Special mention must be made of the Profile Investment Holdings and Motor Vehicle Accident Fund (MVA), who sponsored the competition and were vital to its success. The competition organisers hope to take the competition national next year, hence their appeal to individuals or companies to come on board with sponsorships.