A total of six teams competed for Burnside High School in the New Zealand programming competition on the 7th September. This was more teams than any other school in the whole of Canterbury and is testament to the growing strength of Burnside High School in programming.

The event was hosted by the University of Canterbury and our teams got to rub shoulders with some of the best programmers in the country as the same competition questions were attempted by school level, university level and open teams of programmers, most of whom work in industry as programmers and software engineers.

Burnside’s top team of Vincent Lee, Eric Song and Joseph Grace (pictured) won “Top School” with 282 points, more than 130 points clear of the nearest rivals from King’s College. Even more impressively, they came 4th out of all 130 teams from every grade, beating every single team in the tertiary, junior and tertiary intermediate group in the process.

Burnside High School can now focus on working towards continued success in the Canterbury and National programming competitions in 2020 as some of the year 13’s move on to greater things. Hopes are high as some super talented youngsters are making their way through the ranks with students like Hanan Fokkens, Nicholas Grace, Isaac Sui, Larissa Whalley, Leo Black, Hadas Livne, Ivo Jesche, Evelyn Atlas, Adita Sharma, Jazmyn Higgs and Chris Whalley (in no particular order). If this is something you feel you could get into, please contact us and come along to the x-block on Friday lunchtime for some coaching and to get new of any upcoming competitions.