A team from the Arkansas School for Mathematics, Sciences and the Arts placed second in the 2023 All-State Coding Competition.
Seventeen teams from high schools across the state participated in the competition held April 29 at the University of Arkansas — Pulaski Technical College in North Little Rock. The contest features teams solving problems that test contestants’ computer science knowledge. A team from Conway High School won first place while a team from Rogers High School took third.
ASMSA automatically qualified for the competition as a reward for having a team win last year’s competition. This year’s team featured seniors Robert Boerwinkle and Vicky Zhu, both from El Dorado, and junior Brent Orlina of Little Rock. Boerwinkle was a member of last year’s championship team.
Nicholas Seward, a computer science instructor at ASMSA who serves as the team’s sponsor, said selecting members for the team was a fierce competition.
“I easily had over 10 students that could be competitive at the state level,” he said. “I have been lucky to always have a team with some juniors (one junior this year) and some seniors so that there can be some continuity going forward.”
Seward said the competition among the teams was very good. His team functioned well while dealing with the challenges of the event.
“The biggest challenge is that three highly talented students have to share one computer,” Seward said. “I heard from a judge that they were highly efficient, switching on and off the computer seamlessly with a clear division of labor.
“The competition is fierce. We look forward to a rematch with Conway next year as we both have junior members who will return next year. Arkansas has no shortage of promising future computer scientists.”
Each student was awarded a $1,000 529 college savings plan prize. ASMSA received $6,000 to support its computer science program. The prizes and support for the competition were provided by a grant from ARCodeKids and Microsoft.