OLYMPIADS IN INFORMATICS, 2007, Vol. 1, 149-164
© Institute of Mathematics and Informatics,

ISSN 1822-7732

Increasing the Appeal of Programming Contests with Tasks Involving Graphical User Interfaces and Computer Graphics

Pedro RIBEIROa, Pedro GUERREIROb

aDepartamento de Ciência de Computadores, Faculdade de Ciências, Universidade do Porto Rua Campo Alegre, 1021/1055, 4169-007 Porto, Portugal E-mail: pribeiro@dcc.fc.up.pt

bDepartamento de Informática, Faculdade de Ciências e Tecnologia, Universidade Nova de Lisboa Quinta da Torre, 2829-516 Caparica, Portugal E-mail: pg@di.fct.unl.pt

Abstract

Programming contests should be capable of being appealing to both the contestants and the general public. We feel that the use of graphical user interfaces and computer graphics could help achieve this goal, providing new ways of viewing the task. We describe experiments we made with games (Tic-Tac-Toe, Snake and Ataxx, an Othello-like game), which were made available to students with graphical components, and discuss the results. We also present a simple graphic library where simple drawings can be made and show how it can be used in a programming contest environment. We then conclude by revisiting some past IOI problems, suggesting ways to enhance them with graphical components.

Keywords:

programming contests, graphical user interfaces, computer graphics


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Copyright © Olympiads in Informatics, Vilnius University Institute of Mathematics and Informatics, 2007