1st CUELC Programming Competition 2008 - Master your Mind

Would you like to win an iPod shuffle?! and also enhance you programming skills at the same time?! Than check this out! Cairo University E-Learning Center proudly announces the first programming competition.

What is the programming competition about?

Basically, the competition provides 4 major aspects: Students will have the exceptional opportunity to...

• ...build their programming and problem-solving skills.
• ...apply their theoretically obtained knowledge and expertise to a practical task.
• ...organise themselves in teams and manage their working process on their own.
• ...get the thrill of competing and interacting with other students.

This is a great opportunity for your students to apply the basics of two CUELC E-Learning courses:

• Data Structure and Algorithms
• Software Engineering

What is the challenge of the competition?

The challenge is to program the famous strategy game Mastermind. Thereby, the main focus is to implement the gameplay and its rules by developing and coding appropriate algorithms. If anybody is not familiar with this game, an overview of mastermind can be obtained at Wikipedia Mastermind (there certainly is further information throughout the internet). For a first impression, the following page provides an example of the game: www.owlready.com/owlcode/

How does the competition work and what are deliverables?

Students will team up in groups of 3. They will write an executable program for Windows, Linux or Macintosh in C++, Visual Basic, Java or whatever language you like to create a version of mastermind. In addition to the program, it is required that the participants hand in their project plan, including milestones, and the architecture of the program.

please consider delivery refinements in the news section

What are the Evaluation Criteria?

Judging will be applied in sequence, meaning that if the first requirement is met, then the second requirement is evaluated and so on. The requirments written bold are obligatory. Please note that the first requirements are weighted heavier than the others. Evaluation Details are as follows:

1. Are the Mastermind rules implemented correctly? Are there no breaches of rules or any forbidden actions/ moves? (40 %)
2. How efficient/ fast is the implementation of algorithms? How fast is the program running, any delays? (15 %) Important!To verify this criteria, an output of the time needed by the program to calculate the respective move is required.
3. How many lines of code are used? The less, the better! (15 %)
4. How structured, complete and comprehensible is your project documentation (specification/ requirements analysis, code documentation, project plan with milestones)? (15 %)
5. How many features does the game provide? Are there any options, such as the possibility of choosing the amount of pegs? (10 %)
6. How user friendly is your interface? How is the usability of the program supporting the user? (10 %)
7. How are matters of style considered? How engaging is the interface? (5 %)

What are the dates?

Please register up to July, 15th in order to participate.

Please hand in your files up to August, 22nd.

What Prizes can be won?

The first prize is a fancy, cool iPod shuffle for each member of the winning team!

How to participate?

Each team has to be registered once. Register here!

Registration form

How to hand in your software?

Please pack your project to .zip or .rar and send it to admin@cuelc.eu with the following subject in your email:
"CUELC Programming Competition - Team: <your teamname>".

Are there any further questions?

Contact us if you have any further question or if anything is still unclear to you:
admin@cuelc.eu