ECS Hosts Successful Annual Programming Challenge 4 Girls

On the 23rd of November 2011, ECS and VUW hosted 51 Year 10 girls from around the Wellington Greater Region as part of the annual Programming Challenge 4 Girls competition. The girls worked in pairs to complete a series of challenges developed by AUT in Alice. At the same time, teachers attended a Professional Development workshop to learn about electronics and programming.

ECS graduate students and staff helped run the challenge: Harsha Raja, Shahida Jabeen, Bing Xue, Sharon Gao and Monique Damitio assisted in the labs, while Luke Frogley, Roma Klapaukh, Ian Welch and Stuart Marshall ran the workshop for teachers.

Gold medals were awarded to the following two pairs:

• Nicole Rennie and Rachel Wong (Samuel Marsden Collegiate School)
• Nadja Jury and Piper Biswell (Wellington East Girls College)

Silver medals were awarded to the following girls:

• Isabella Strang and Chanelle Doole (Sacret Heart College)
• Janice Chin, Bettina Dela Paz, and Anna Lin (Onslow College)
• Jialin Sae-Jin and Anna Singleton (Samuel Marsden Collegiate School)
• Samantha James and Gemma Burns (Wellington East Girls College)

Finally, bronze medals were awarded to the following girls:

• Anneka Wijetunge and Zahra Zanahir (Newlands College)
• Bella Wallace and Tulsi Wallace (Wellington East Girls College)
• Danielle Bettany and Pippi Sargent (Wellington East Girls College)
• Jess Dellabarca and Shannon Denham (Wellington East Girls College)

The prizes were kindly provided by Google and ECS. The gold medalists were also invited to attend a Girls Summer Camp hosted by Victoria University from 24^th – 26^th January 2012 for the top teams around NZ in the Programming Challenge 4 Girls. This event is being organised by Stuart Marshall.

ECS will be hosting the Programming Challenge 4 Girls again in late November next year. We highly encourage you to get in touch with Alex Potanin, the organiser of the challenge, for more information.