The New Brunswick High School Programming Competition brought talented students from high schools throughout NB to the UNB Saint John campus for 13 years. In 2021 and 2022, the contest was instead held virtually, with school staff supervising contestants. Teams of two contestants are customary, though individual students are permitted.
Contestants test their computer-programming skills and problem-solving abilities. The contest consists of a number of programming problems of increasing degrees of difficulty for teams to complete. The team that solves the most problems wins, and ties are broken based on how quickly the problems are solved.
Our sponsors provide generous prizes:
Additionally, all participants who solve some problems will receive $50 and $100 certificates (depending on the difficulty of the problems solved) good for first year tuition in any science, computer science or engineering programme offered by the Faculty of Science, Applied Science and Engineering at UNB Saint John.
View our photos from the 2019 event and the 2022 poster.
See the quick announcement of the results and draws for door prizes from 2022.
See a story from the UNB media people about the 2021 contest and its first-place winner (Victor Huang from Fredericton High).
Visit our Facebook page.
Due to the virtual nature of the contest, schools can send as many students as they wish. Teachers from participating NB high schools should be the ones to register their students.
Registration needed to be completed by noon on April 22nd. If you have missed this deadline, you can try registering late, but it is not clear that we will be able to get the late registrations checked out and into the Kattis system. The sooner, the higher the chances of success!
For more information, contact nbhspgmcomp@unb.ca. If you are a teacher from a school that has not participated recently, we'd really like to add you to our mailing list.
As of April 22, here is a list of schools known to be participating this year:
High School | Contact teacher | Room |
Fredericton | Kayoe Stewart | E108 |
Fredericton | Terri Brooks | F111 |
Fredericton Christian Academy | Lucas Candy | |
St. Malachy's Memorial | Jocelyn Wells | |
Leo Hayes | Jeremy Brown | D112 |
St. Stephen | Scott Legge | 236 |
Simonds | Peter Woytiuk | A205/A201 |
Harrison Trimble | Joel Flanagan | 320 |
Bernice MacNaughton | Jason Melendy | 206 |
Saint John | ||
Miramichi Valley | Kathy MacDonald | 2221 |
Riverview | Stephanie Robertson | 1029 |
Harvey | Nathan Hoyt | |
Kennebecasis Valley | ||
Moncton | ||
Sir James Dunn Academy | ||
Sussex | ||
James M. Hill Memorial | ||
Looking to hone your skills? See the sample problems for 2019 or previous years (2018, 2017, 2016, 2015, 2014). The problems used in 2021 and 2022 are linked from the scoreboards.
See our contest rules for 2022. These rules and procedures may be modified and/or extended right up to the time of the competition. Registered contestants will eventually be sent a link to a form where they can acknowledge having read and agreed to the rules.
To gain familiarity with Kattis, potential contestants will need to create accounts at Open Kattis and they may also want to tackle some of the easiest-rated problems there. (The set of public problems is mostly intended for university students. Our contest will be developing a set of new problems suited for high-school students.) Teachers will find that it is easy to pull together practice contests with existing problems on Open Kattis, and the functionality of Open Kattis is very similar to what contestants will experience on the (non-Open) Kattis site used for the actual competition.
We have prepared a document, "Getting Started with Kattis". It is highly recommended to try out the steps highlighted in this document, so as to avoid problems during the competition. A second document, "Kattis During Contest," explains additional Kattis aspects needed during the contest.
The registration process requires you to give the email address that was used to set up your Kattis account. (If a different email address is given, there will be difficulties.)
Once the contest is running, contestants can use the Kattis "clarifications" system to ask questions about the problems they are supposed to solve, in case the problems seem unclearly worded. Some of the responses may be made available to everyone, if the judges think it appropriate. Do not use the clarification system for technical help (eg, difficulties with Kattis).
For the most part, non-clarification questions during the contest should be emailed to owen@unbsj.ca. Email is probably better for most questions.
In 2022, we had about 87 students registered, representing 17 different schools. Due to covid, not everyone was able to compete, but we had 42 teams that attempted at least one problem, and 34 succeeded. Results can be seen on the scoreboard from the contest site.
Every year (except Covid years!) teams from high schools across New Brunswick are invited to UNB Saint John's High School Programming Competition. Regardless of who takes which titles, every student will be a winner! Each student will have won by gaining the experience of working as part of a team, participating in a fun event, and making new friends.
We thank our long-term and new sponsors: