On 10th April 2021, Codingal along with HPE hosted their first virtual coding competition – HPE CodeWars 2021. We saw almost 700 students across grades 9th to 12th participate. The competition consisted of 25 coding-related questions which could be solved using any of the programming languages – Python, Java, C++, etc.
The results were evaluated on the basis of an automated online code engine with the winners’ leaderboard getting updated in real-time. Top 70 performers won prizes – with the top 5 winners getting the opportunity to video chat with senior HPE technologists and top 3 winners earning the opportunity to run code experiments on SBC2 (a supercomputer currently in ISS).
What is a competitive coding competition?
Competitive programming requires participants to solve coding challenges using logical statements. They involve executing the solutions in a stipulated period of time. Other factors that affect the scoring is the output as well as the size of the program created.
The HPE CodeWars, for example, was a 3-hour long competition with coding problems getting difficult as the questions proceeded. A real-time leaderboard reflected the participant scoring.
Codingal’s association with HPE CodeWars 2021
The competition registration was opened a month in March’21. Invitations were sent to schools across India and 2700 children registered across Grade 6 to 12. We got to see registrations from 173 cities with Bangalore, Patna, Lucknow, Pune, and Delhi being the top five.
How did Codingal help students prepare for the competition?
Besides being platform partners, Codingal also played the role of being the knowledge partner for CodeWars. We helped students to prepare for the competition in the following ways –
- HPE CodeWars 2021 Practice Arena – Registrants were given access to 30 coding-related problems which they could practice and understand what to expect.
- Coding competition workshop – We were receiving a lot of queries from students to understand the evaluation process and solutions. Hence, we organized a coding workshop to answer their questions and solve a couple of problems.
- Dedicated support team – We had a dedicated team to resolve participant queries at the earliest and help them navigate through the preparation process all the way to providing support during the competition
The day of HPE CodeWars 2021
The participants were asked to join a zoom webinar on the day of the competition to explain the rules and regulations. They were informed about how the team will be there throughout the duration to support any technical queries.
The competition started at 1 PM and the leaderboard was neck-to-neck. There was a photo finish moment for the top 5 contenders of the competition. Here’s the score analysis for the top-10 –
Winners of the competition
Participants that won the opportunity to talk to senior technologists of HPE –
- Mohit Hulse, Bangalore
- Siddhant Attavar, Bangalore
- Swastik Agarwala, Delhi
- Saarang Srinivasan, Bangalore
- D Tarun Karthik, Bangalore
Participants that won the opportunity to run code experiments on SBC2 –
- Mohit Hulse – Winner
- Siddhant Attavar – 1st Runner-up
- Swastik Agarwala – 2nd Runner-up
Snippets of the virtual award ceremony
News Coverage of the competition
The competition got picked up through various news publications like the Financial Express, The Hindu, Business Standard, News Voir, Your Story, and more.
A competition of this stage to be organized on a virtual platform was a first. And the response, as well as admiration received, was quite gratifying.
Codingal will continue its efforts of making each child fall in love with coding. It aims to penetrate more cities to help students get accessibility to coding education. If you are interested in coding or would like to explore it as a career option, book a free trial with us.
