Halls of Learning

Syllabus

Tasks are designed around a syllabus with two areas of learning:

Learning Area One

• Input and output
• String handling
• Mathematical operators
• Logical operators
• Conditional statements
• Loops
• Subroutines
• Lists and arrays
• File input and output (Senior and Elite only)
• Classes and objects (Senior and Elite only)

Learning Area Two

• Logical thinking
• Algorithmic thinking
• Decomposition
• Pattern recognitition
• Abstraction
• Evaluation
• Debugging

* Juniors and Intermediates will not be set problems that require an understanding of this topic.

Programming Languages

Some sections tasks will require participants to be familiar with the Blockly programming language. Other tasks will allow students to program in any programming language using any IDE available on their school computers.

Students can use documentation or tool tips that are built in to their IDE but they may not look up documentation on the internet, search the internet in any way, or use other applications whilst participating in the Challenge.

The Challenge Format

The challenges will be run in schools using the same infrastructure used in the UK Bebras Challenge but with some new task types.

Four age categories: Elite, Seniors, Intermediates and Juniors
Time allowed: 1hour
Aim: To solve as many problems as possible in the time allowed.

Each Challenge will have three sections:

Section 1
5 tasks to solve that test understanding of syllabus area one in a fairly straightforward way.
(4 points each)

Section 2
5 tasks testing understanding of more than one syllabus area one skill. These tasks may, in addition, require the application of the Computational Thinking skills outlined in syllabus area two.
(6 points each)

Section 3
2 longer problems that test programming skills and the computational thinking skills outlined in syllabus area two. These can be solved using any programming language but for the younger age groups these will still be solvable with Blockly.
(8 points each)

Age group differences:
Juniors - All tasks will be Blockly tasks
Intermediates - All tasks in Sections 1 and 2 will be Blockly tasks and the two Section 3 problems will be solvable using Blockly.
Seniors - Some tasks in Sections 1 and 2 will be Blockly tasks
Elite - Some tasks in Section 1 may be Blockly tasks.