Success for the BHS Top programming team at the New Zealand Programming Competition

After Programming successes in the recent Canterbury Schools' Programming competition and the New Zealand Olympiad of Informatics, the Programming teams went to compete in the National New Zealand Programming Competition. Hosted once again by the University of Canterbury, the nationwide competition saw teams from schools, universities and professional programmers compete together in an online competition from venues across the country. The high school category had 58 teams from a number of schools around NZ and, as always, was going to be a tough competition.

Four teams competed from Burnside High School: “Boom Sway Pro Team” of Leon Meier and Harrison Camm, “TerrorBite” with Leo Black and Larissa Whalley, “Bruce22” with Nicholas Grace, Joseph Grace and Andrew Hall and “BHSteve” with Vincent Lee, Eric Song and Grant Wong.

The competition was a marathon five hours long and to make matters worse, the reigning Canterbury Schools' Programming Competition winners from Middleton Grange were present again, and were a constant challenge. “BHSteve” managed to confidently overtake the Middleton Grange School team after an hour into the competition and held the lead for most of the middle portion. With about 90 minutes to go, the other Burnside team- Bruce22 took the lead by nailing a tough 30 point problem on their first submission. With the scoreboard locked in the last hour it came down to the tough 100 point questions and any team that managed to get one from anywhere on the table could potential win the competition.

Despite the nail biting finish, the Burnside team of Vincent Lee, Grant Wong and Eric Song held out for a well-deserved first place. Burnside’s other team of Andrew Hall, Nicholas Grace and Joseph Grace ended up in second place on equal points, however, the speed and accuracy of “BHSteve” put them slightly ahead on count-back.

All the teams have worked hard this year and shown real commitment and talent. Success in this competition does not come easily and all the participants deserve credit for their efforts. Well done to all those involved and Burnside can look forward to defending the title again next year.