![“[Building nerf blasters] became this outlet of creativity for me that hasn't been matched by anything else. The process [of] making a build complete to your desire is such a painstakingly difficult process, but I've had to learn from [the skills needed from] soldering to proper painting. There's so many different options for everything, if you think about it, it exists. The best part is [that] if it doesn't exist, you can build it yourself," Ishaan Parate said.](https://harkeraquila.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/DSC_8149-900x604.jpg)
![“When I came into high school, I was ready to be a follower. But DECA was a game changer for me. It helped me overcome my fear of public speaking, and it's played such a major role in who I've become today. To be able to successfully lead a chapter of 150 students, an officer team and be one of the upperclassmen I once really admired is something I'm [really] proud of,” Anvitha Tummala ('21) said.](https://harkeraquila.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/Screen-Shot-2021-07-25-at-9.50.05-AM-900x594.png)
![“I think getting up in the morning and having a sense of purpose [is exciting]. I think without a certain amount of drive, life is kind of obsolete and mundane, and I think having that every single day is what makes each day unique and kind of makes life exciting,” Neymika Jain (12) said.](https://harkeraquila.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/Screen-Shot-2017-06-03-at-4.54.16-PM.png)
![“My slogan is ‘slow feet, don’t eat, and I’m hungry.’ You need to run fast to get where you are–you aren't going to get those championships if you aren't fast,” Angel Cervantes (12) said. “I want to do well in school on my tests and in track and win championships for my team. I live by that, [and] I can do that anywhere: in the classroom or on the field.”](https://harkeraquila.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/DSC5146-900x601.jpg)
![“[Volleyball has] taught me how to fall correctly, and another thing it taught is that you don’t have to be the best at something to be good at it. If you just hit the ball in a smart way, then it still scores points and you’re good at it. You could be a background player and still make a much bigger impact on the team than you would think,” Anya Gert (’20) said.](https://harkeraquila.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/AnnaGert_JinTuan_HoHPhotoEdited-600x900.jpeg)
![“I'm not nearly there yet, but [my confidence has] definitely been getting better since I was pretty shy and timid coming into Harker my freshman year. I know that there's a lot of people that are really confident in what they do, and I really admire them. Everyone's so driven and that has really pushed me to kind of try to find my own place in high school and be more confident,” Alyssa Huang (’20) said.](https://harkeraquila.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/AlyssaHuang_EmilyChen_HoHPhoto-900x749.jpeg)
Harker to hold annual Programming Invitational this Sunday
Harker’s Programming Club will host its annual Harker Programming Invitational [HPI], which will include competitions, a college fair, and keynote speeches, this Sunday in Nichols Hall from 7:30 a.m. to 2:10 p.m.
The Invitational
The two-hour main round will begin at 8:45 a.m. Each team of up to three people will use a single laptop computer to solve programming problems on the Programming Club’s website. Competitors can submit code using Python, Java or C++. A half-hour challenge round will begin at 11:20 a.m.
HPI will feature both Novice and Advanced divisions, which allow programming students of different levels to participate and compete with others on the same level as them.
“The reason why we have these two division is to allow competitors and people interested in computer programming who have a year or less of computer experience to not be intimidated by those who have been programming for a while,” David Zhu (10) said. “They have their own separate division and they can be comfortable knowing that the problems will not be incredibly difficult for them.”
In addition to the competition, HPI will feature a keynote address by Anna Patterson from Google.
“She’s very involved in the creative side of Google,” Programming Club President Sadhika Malladi (11) said. “We thought that it would be cool to have someone who does both computer science and design.”
The road to HPI
Behind the scenes, Harker’s Programming Club works to prepare for HPI. The process involves activities ranging from obtaining funding to writing the competition questions.
“The biggest thing we have to work on is getting sponsors to fund the event, and so we contact a lot of companies that would be interested in helping high school computer science education,” Sadhika said. The sponsors of HPI this year include Make School, Pebble, and ACEprep.
Sophomores David Zhu and Manan Shah help write problems for the invitational.
“The problem set writing process involves an initial discussion about the level of difficulty of the set, after which the writers work individually on their respective problems,” Manan said. “After thorough vetting is completed, the problems are ready to be released.”
Registration was available until March 1, but by Feb. 28, the Programming Club sent out an email notification that the maximum number of teams had registered and new teams could register only for the waitlist.
After registration closed, more than 20 teams had been waitlisted, including the team of Jimmy Lin (9).
“When we were trying to wait for the deadline, seeing who would participate on our team, we ended up waiting too long,” Jimmy said. “That’s how we ended up being on the waitlist.
College Fair, ProCo and beyond
After registered teams have finished competing, they will have an opportunity to meet college professors at the college fair during lunch.
“Our college fair is really geared towards helping students learn what their opportunities are,” Sadhika said. “We have a bunch of local colleges as well like CMU coming.”
After the Invitational has finished, eager programmers will have more opportunities to compete and learn.
“Of course there’s the USACO competitions–so that’s the USA Computer Olympiad, and those are by far the most popular problems to train with,” David said.
Programmers can also attend hackathons, where they work with a team to build an application in a few days.
“Other [students] who are more interested in the development process should register in Hackathons for hands-on building experience,” Manan said.
Another programming contest after the Invitational is Stanford University’s ProCo.
“ProCo […] is the Stanford programming competition, and this is what our Harker programming invitational is modeled after, so that’s also a really good competition to attend,” David said.
According to its website, ProCo also has novice and advanced divisions. Registration for ProCo will be open from March 18 to April 17, and the competition will be on May 17.
This piece was originally published in the pages of the Winged Post on March 13, 2015.
Praveen Batra (9) is a reporter for the Winged Post. He enjoys informative writing, design, and typography. In his spare time, he likes to write mobile...
Ashley Jiang (11) is the photo editor for Winged Post. This is her third year in the journalism program, and she was a reporter her freshman and sophomore...