In software engineering, rubber duck debugging is a method of debugging code. The name is a reference to a story in the book The Pragmatic Programmer in which a programmer would carry around a rubber duck and debug their code by forcing themselves to explain it, line-by-line, to the duck. When students check-in for either the individual or team competition on Saturday morning, they will be presented with their very own rubber duck to help them tackle the coding challenges. While their duck companion will definitely help, students and coaches are more likely ready for the competition questions through six weeks of preparation including an optional workshop held on March 23 at Riverside County Office of Education (RCOE).
“Since this is our inaugural programming competition, we were unsure what to expect in terms of interest and participation,” explained Dr. Dennis Large, Director of Educational Technology for RCOE. “We are extremely grateful to Cal Poly Pomona and UC Riverside for their expertise and enthusiasm in working with us on the event and for developing the practice and competition problems.”
For the last month and a half, competitors have been working on weekly sets of problems developed by Cal Poly Pomona and UC Riverside as practice for the contest. The problems are presented in an order of ascending difficulty to allow for student success and challenge. Participants have been using HackerRank, a technology hiring platform that is the standard for assessing developer skills, to work through the questions. By using this specific platform, students who choose to pursue a career in software engineering will be familiar with the interview software.
“Next year, we have committed to partner with San Bernardino County Office of Education start their own programming competition,” stated Dr. Large. “Our dream is to eventually see students from our county move on to a state competition. With such a strong start this year, that dream will soon be a reality.” Following the programming competition, RCOE and Riverside Unified School District will be hosting the first-ever Computer Science Community Summit on May 11 from 10 am to 3 pm at the Riverside County Office of Education. The event is free and open to the public and will feature the winners from the 2019 Programming Competition, award-winning computer science education highlights, and workshops for students and families. The results were as follows:
High School Individual
1st Ansh Srivastava - Corona-Norco Unified, John F. Kennedy Middle College High
2nd Nicholas Falcon - Desert Sands Unified, Palm Desert High
3rd Noe Martinez - Corona-Norco Unified, Centennial High
High School Teams
1st Tobias Fischer, Sevan Evans, Samuel Raumin, Ruchit Patel - Desert Sands Unified, Palm Desert High
2nd Dararith Sao, Anthony Villegas, William Chen, Vincent Alexander - Corona-Norco Unified, Centennial High
3rd Moti Urga Kadin Hickey - Moreno Valley Unified, Valley View High
Middle School Individual
1st Emiliano Melendrez - Moreno Valley Unified, Palm Middle
2nd Aubrey Glancy - Moreno Valley Unified, Towngate Elementary
3rd Andrik Rodriguez - Perris Union High, Pinacate Middle
Middle School Teams
1st Mario Avery Castelo, Enzo Angelo Cayetano, Malinda Jin, Maddison Chau - Moreno Valley Unified, Palm Middle
2nd Natalie Chun, Carlos Marquez, Janeth Gomez - Moreno Valley Unified, Palm Middle
3rd Miguel Medina, Christopher Vallejos - Moreno Valley Unified, Palm Middle
“We are thrilled with the success of our first coding competition and want to congratulate all students and their coaches who participated,” said Dr. Dennis Large, Director of Educational Technology for RCOE. “We are also extremely grateful to Cal Poly Pomona and UC Riverside for their expertise and enthusiasm in launching this competition.”