UIV Computer Scientists reach final University of Oxford Computer Science Challenge

Talented pupils Darcy and Minty, UIV, were invited to the Department of Computer Science at the University of Oxford on Saturday 10 February as finalists in a UK-wide computing competition – The UK BEBRAS Computational Thinking Challenge.

Reaching the final of the Intermediate age group is an impressive achievement, as 71,146 students entered the first round for the age group (12–14). Darcy and Minty were among the top 60 highest achieving students invited to the final round in their age group, and were presented with their finalist’s certificates at a prize giving ceremony at Hertford College.

The UK BEBRAS Computational Thinking Challenge, supported by Google, is designed to get students excited about computing and computational thinking. It is a problem-solving contest with questions inspired by topics in computer science. In the first round, held in their own schools, students have to try and solve as many problems as possible in the allotted time. There are six age categories. The highest scoring students from the four oldest age groups (Elite, Senior, Intermediate, and Junior) were then invited to the Department of Computer Science at Oxford for the finals over two weekends in January and February.