Last spring, the Computer Tech Club (CTC) hosted its first Coding Contest remotely. The purpose of the contest was to give Farmingdale State College (FSC) students an opportunity to practice their coding skills in a constructive, creative environment outside of class with purpose. Contestants were to utilize knowledge and skills learned at FSC to develop solutions to submit for the competition. Generally, CTC events are open to all FSC students unless otherwise specified. This event was made public to FSC students on RamCentral and announcements were also shared in student Discord Communities.
CTC President, Philip Guerrero, created the rules for the contest based on online research and experience. The advice was sought from FSC faculty members Dr. Greenwald, Dr. Hoskey, and Dr. Aydin. In addition, Dr. Aydin helped establish a time frame for the event and Dr. Hamada, Computer Tech Club Advisor, helped recruit judges. Dr. Dean served as the judge for this competition. Once the contest timeline and guidelines were established and approved, the event launched.
The contest guidelines and instructions were for contestants to develop and code something that can be learned on FSC campus. The evaluation rubric was 4 categories of an equal weight of up to 25 points per category: 1) Concept and Design 2) Functionality 3) Neatness 4) Demo/Presentation. Contestants were to submit a Demo/Video presentation for evaluation and each submission was assigned point values. Based on the rubric for evaluation, Judge Nur assigned values for projects, and first, second, and third-place prizes of $50, $30, $20 amazon gift cards would be awarded to the top scorers. There was also a $20 gift card door prize for those who participated that didn’t place in the top three chosen at random. All participants who made a submission were sent an FSC goody bag including a Ramhack bag, stickers, and pop grips for cell phones. Students who registered for the contest using the forms found on RamCentral were emailed on the start date, April 16th and the contest ended at midnight April 25th. CTC hosted a meeting to review the rules with interested contestants on the start date. Awards were distributed to student winners as follows
- 1st Place, Paul Kim, Password Cracker, utilized machine learning to enhance the program’s speed
- 2nd Place, Kyoshi Noda, Chef cooking utility program
- 3rd Place, Franklin Jara, Mobile application that tracked thoughts and ideas and password locked information
Honorable Mention & Door Prize Winner, Faaiza Naeem, Library webpage with a login used for volunteer work at her local library.