Eleven young men from The Rock ventured out to Kansas State University to compete in an annual high school programming contest. To give you an idea of the size and scale of the event, I took this picture just minutes before round one:
Many schools competed. Unfortunately, the advisors were not permitted to observe. I had imagined working on the same problems from an observation room, but we ended up taking a tour of the new engineering facility currently under construction (left). During the tour, we saw this pond system (right) designed by the engineering students to solve a flooding problem of the adjacent street. Impressive.
After the tour and lunch we returned to the competition site. I managed to sneak in a photo before the students had their lunch. During the student lunch, I took the opportunity to hear about their progress and feelings toward the experience - overall very positive. As I recall, the advanced team was almost solving each problem. Sam Spenceri is eager to compete again so they may redeem themselves.
Definitely a trip worth repeating.
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