The Questionnaire
This questionnaire was handed out during the prize givingn (of the 1994
competition). About 70 people
responded and this is what they said. (The mathematically inclined among
you might note that not everyone replied to all questions.)
Programming Languages
More languages should be supported. Yes : 32 No : 34
The Problems
- Were they clear Yes : 48, No 21
- Too difficult : 28
- Too easy : 3
- About right : 38
Computers normally used by Competitors
- PCs 44
- Acorn 6
- Macintosh 5
- Amiga 4
- Nimbus 4
- BBC 4
- ZX Spectrum 1
- C64 1
Competition Dislikes
(comments on the food were eaten.)
- Computer marking problems : 12
- Too Long (i.e. five hours in a session) : 8
- Too short : 6
- QBasic : 4
- No girls : 4
- Too much Maths : 4
- File Handling : 3
- The results were not available after the first day : 3
Competition Likes
- Atmosphere and meeting people : 21
- The Challenge : 11
- Using DCU Computers and Software : 6
- The Novelty : 2
- The T-shirt : 2
- The Helpful Supervisors : 1
Suggestions
- More emphasis on age groups
- Less emphasis on the C Language.
- Allow people to compete remotely by modem.
Did You enjoy the Competition
- Yes : 63
- Kindof : 2
- No : 2
- We will try to improve clarity of problems.
- We will be increasing emphasis on Age groups.
- We will have some easier problems. It might also be possible to de-emphasize maths.
- We are doing everything possible to encourage girls to participate.
Unfortunately, a lot of the other dislikes expressed are difficult to respond to.
- Time (It is long, but you can bring in food if you wish)
- Languages allowed. The languages we provide are those of the international competition.
- Computer Marking. The fairest way is to look at the code. But no two people will agree on the
merits of a particular program. In addition, looking at each program would take a very long time,
which would mean that the prize-giving would be long after the competition (e.g. a week).
- File Handling. This is a consequence of the previous point. i.e. it is easier to mark the files by
computer.
These all follow the format of the international competition (IOI). We use their format for two
reasons
- We want to select a team that will do well in the IOI.
- We want to get competitors used to the IOI format.