4th Annual Alice Competition and Project Rise Up 4 CS

The Institute for Computing Education (ICE) at Georgia Tech held their 4th annual Alice Competition this spring. Barbara Ericson, the director of ICE, along with STARS students, Laura Boullain, Rita Koslov, Kyle Hosford, Jennifer Yim and other outreach students judged over a hundred entries for this competition. The competition had divisions for students in middle and high school. Students could enter individually or as a group. The two categories were movies and interactive games.

Entries were judged on their creativity, originality, technical merit and how well they followed good programming practices. Prizes were awarded to the highest scoring entries in each category, if there were at least 5 entries in that category.  In addition, prizes were given for Most Creative, Best Comedy, Best Drama, Best Educational Game, Best Educational Movie, Best Adventure Game, Best use of Music, Best use of Sound, Best use of Dialogue, and Best Original Idea.

In addition, to help broaden participation in computing, Barbara Ericson and STARS student Ja’Quan Taylor along with other outreach students are conducting Project Rise Up 4 CS. This program is for black students in Georgia who are taking an Advanced Placement Computer Science A course during the 2012-2013 school year. The program will pay $100 to the participants who meet the necessary requirements of attending at least 4 meetings and/or webinars and pass the AP CS A exam with a score of at least a 3.