The team from the Arkansas School for Mathematics, Sciences and the Arts won the Governor’s All-State Coding Competition held April 30 at the University of Central Arkansas in Conway.
ASMSA took top honors among the 17 teams participating in this year’s state competition. The team—comprised of seniors Trey Clark of Harrison and Joshua Stallings of Little Rock and junior Robert Boerwinkle of El Dorado— qualified for the competition earlier this year through a regional competition.
In the contest, teams work to solve various coding problems based on various scenarios. Each problem receives a score, and in the event of a tie, the amount of time used to answer the questions is used, with the team entering the most correct answers in the least amount of time earning the advantage.
Other schools chosen to compete for the state title were Arkansas High School in Texarkana, Bentonville High School, Bentonville West High School, Cabot High School, Conway High School, Fayetteville High School, Haas Hall Academy in Fayetteville, Haas Hall Academy in Rogers, Har-Ber High School in Springdale, Hot Springs World Class High School, Lisa Academy West High School in Little Rock, Little Rock Central High School, Mountain Home High School, Rogers High School and Star City High School. The Don Tyson School of Innovation from Springdale was the defending state champion and received an automatic entry into the finals competition.
Each member of the winning team received a $2,000 award to be deposited into a 539 College Savings Plan. ASMSA also will receive $10,000 to support its computer science program for the team winning first place. The prizes were provided by a grant from ARCodeKids.
Nicholas Seward, a computer science instructor at ASMSA, serves as the team’s adviser. He said he was very proud of the team’s performance, especially as the competition from across the state grows stronger thanks in part to Gov. Asa Hutchinson’s focus on broadening the scope of computer science education in Arkansas.
“We have gone from 50 CS teachers before the governor’s initiative to 650 now,” Seward said. “There are some exceptional students and teachers spread across the state. I have been very careful to temper my expectations. To have a chance at winning requires careful planning and preparation. I am so proud of the work they put in and the performance they have brought.”
Both Stallings and Clark said their previous experience from last year’s competition helped them better prepare for this year. In regional competitions, each team member may use a computer to work on problems, but in the state competition, the team is limited to one computer. Knowing that, the team practiced more with one computer beforehand. Their knowledge of what kind of questions also helped.
“We knew to do some practices using only one computer, and Josh’s and my experience competing last year let us know what to practice with and where to delegate our time,” Clark said. “I believe the time from last year’s competition to this year’s allowed us to really develop our coding skills and give us a much larger chance of winning.”
Stallings said the team split the six questions evenly between team members to get started in the competition, writing code for the problems on notebook paper. They then took turns on the computer copying code into the computer. Improving on problem areas from last year was a key to their performance this year, he said.
“Trey and I knew our faults from last year and aimed to improve on that this year. I found my share of the problems to be relatively straightforward. That’s not to say it was without difficulty, but I believe the previous year’s experience in the competition aided us immensely,” Stallings said.
Boerwinkle said that Clark, who is also president of the school’s Computer Science Club, helped the team prepare by assigning practice problems for the team.
Seward said he sees competitions such as this as a way for team members to assess and validate their abilities. While the competition may not directly prepare them for future careers in computer science, it can serve as an inspiration to learn more.
“Students are inspired for so many varied reasons,” Seward said. “Some by competition, money, learning, and/or solving problems. What makes this competition special is it so clearly shows how much Arkansas values developing native computer science talent. Microsoft, as an example, also sees this and has funded the competition for this year and the next.”
Clark said ASMSA classes provide a foundation for students to build on and then finally display the skills they’ve developed. While he had some self-taught coding experience before coming to ASMSA, the coursework and the mentorship offered by ASMSA instructors helped him grown.
“Seward helped me take it much farther and enabled me to do things faster, more efficiently and more clearly,” Clark said. “I was amazed at the level of things we did and how well Seward taught them. I went from thinking neural networks or genetic algorithms being only achievable for large corporations or groups with a large amount of resources, but we just did it in class.”
Stallings said the breadth of classes available at ASMSA also helps students in competitions because of the various topics that are covered.
“From the research-oriented capstone class to the variety of electives here, there’s a lot more opportunity to learn about computer science,” Stallings said.
Seward said ASMSA offers four concurrent credit computer science education courses and several others at an equally high level.
“Through these classes and their capstone projects, these thee exceptional students have had the ability to grow even more talented,” Seward said. “They have reached a level of computer science maturity I see from juniors and seniors in college.”
Seward and Carl Frank, who is also a computer science educator at ASMSA, were recognized as state finalist for the Arkansas Computer Science Educators of the Year. They were among five finalists from across the state. Kimberly Raup, an educator at Conway High School, won that award.
To view the entire awards ceremony, visit https://asmsa.me/awardsyoutube.