On a crisp, sunny morning on March 6 2006, 11 teams of high school students from central Massachusetts participated in the inaugural WPI High School Programming Contest. The four-hour event attracted thirty-three Junior and Senior students to compete in head-to-head competition.
 

The contest was held in the Civil Engineering programming laboratory (Kaven Hall 207) and the judging "Command Center" was down the hall where team advisors watched the contest unfold in real time as each student submission was judged by the contest judges.

The problems tested the programming ability of the students in different areas, such as mathematics, plane geometry, string manipulation, and game theory. Students were able to submit solutions written in programming languages such as C, C++, or Java. The contest was supported by an on-line submission system that allowed all participants to view the ongoing results of the competition in real-time.

The set of four problems proved to be quite difficult for the day, frustrating the efforts of the student teams. Seven of the eleven teams were unable to successfully solve a problem. The top two teams (Mass. Academy of Math and Sciences and the Westborough High School) were able to solve all four problems, a truly significant accomplishment. The Doherty Memorial High School and Acton-Boxborough Regional High School teams performed admirably and solved three of the four problems.
 

Contest Results
 

During the contest, the Mass Academy team quickly built up a solid lead by solving two problems in just over one hour. The Westborough High school team took over the lead by completing three problems by the hour and a half mark, then they completed the last problem after two and a half hours. The Westborough team then waited nervously as the Mass. Academy team completed the final two problems. Because the scoring system of the contest favors teams whose submissions are completed the earliest, the Mass. Academy team ultimately claimed first place by just 225 points (a very close victory margin of just 1.5%).  With twenty minutes to go in the contest, the Doherty Memorial team and the Acton-Boxborough Regional team submitted their third successful solution to secure their positions on the final tally sheets. After the conclusion of the contest, the winning teams were recognized. A special recognition was given to the Doherty Memorial High school for their (failed) submission to problem four of the contest. Even if you have no programming experience, you may be able to see the desperate attempt by this team in trying to output "The Answer to the Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe, and Everything".

public class Problem4 {
  public static void main(String[] args) {
    System.out.println(42);
  }
}

The Computer Science department would like to thank Mark Freitas (a member of the CS department's advisory board) for underwriting the costs of the contest, which allowed all students to participate for free and enabled us to give the students and advisors baseball hats and coffee mugs. We would like to thank the student volunteers who helped ensure a smooth running contest -- graduate students James Baldassari, Abhishek Mukherji, Ryan Seney, and David Toth. Professors Rob Lindeman and Department head Michael Gennert were also on hand to support the contest director Prof. George Heineman.The Academic Technology Center (ATC) ensured the laboratories ran smoothly and Al Johannesen created the accounts for the contest. Thanks to Martha Cyr, the Director of the K-12 outreach program, and Kristen Tichenor, the Associate Vice President of Enrollment Management.