Computational and Algorithmic Thinking Competition

On Thursday May 23 a group of Logan Park High School students took part in the Computational and Algorithmic Thinking (CAT) competition.

The Computational and Algorithmic Thinking (CAT) competition focuses on the skills behind computer programming and algorithm design but does not require any specific knowledge of programming or programming languages. The competition employs a mixture of multiple-choice and integer answers and incorporates unique ‘three-stage-tasks’ that encourage students to develop informal algorithms and apply them to test data of increasing size and/or complexity. Students have to complete 9 questions in one hour.

An example question from the 2024 Intermediate Section (Year 10 and 11)

Card Choice

Tyson is playing a card game. He has six pairs of numbered cards, all visible as follows:

Tyson can choose at most one card from each pair, and aims to make the highest possible total.

However, as he moves from left to right, any card he chooses must be higher than the card previously chosen.

Examples:

Valid sequence: 5 9 10 __

Invalid sequence: 1 5 3 __

What is the highest total Tyson can make?

(A) 24 (B) 25 (C) 26 (D) 27 (E) 28

Congratulations to the following students on their results

Distinction (top 15% of their year and region)

Torin Stephens (Year 9)

Emma Basketville (Year 9)

Cameron Russell (Year 10)

James Fleming (Year 11)

Odin Hyink (Year 11)

Geordie Stephenson (Year 12)

Credit (top 50% of their year and region)

Scott Forbes (Year 9)

Bodhi Boroughf (Year 10)

Amos Clark (Year 10)

Jordan Turner (Year 11)

Ken Nguyen (Year 11)

Charlie Cracknell (Year 13)

Participation

Eshaan Atre (Year 9)

Zihan Fu (Year 10)

Callum Macdiarmid (Year 13)