ECOO Computer Programming Contest - How to Prepare

[newplayer12132]

Hello all.

Recently, my team competed at the ECOO Regional Contest. We did decently this time, as it was out best performance (due to our extensive practice before the contest). However, we did not qualify for the next round.

We have been doing the ECOO Contest for three years, and all three years we have failed to move past Regional. We believe that this is due to our ineffective method of practicing (simply doing the past problems, instead of actually learning different Computer Science skills).

So, we were wondering if there were any resources out there that we could use to prepare for ECOO. We have a good understanding of Python and Java, but we would like to learn how to solve complex recursion problems, sorting algorithm problems, and so on.

Any help would be greatly appreciated. Here is a link to the ECOO website (so you can get an idea of what the contest is like): http://ecoocs.org/problems.php

[Insectoid]

Quote:

we would like to learn how to solve complex recursion problems, sorting algorithm problems, and so on.

The only way is to read and do. Computer programming has unlimited free learning resources on the internet for any skill level. There is no way that I know of to practise programming other than just doing it. Think of a problem, solve it recursively. Find something to sort, and sort it. Spend hours working something out.

Doing old ECOO (and other contest) problems is almost certainly the best way to practise. Contest problems are always very similar- They all read input from a text file. There is almost always a map traversal problem where the map is a grid of ascii characters. Sorting and permutation problems are common.

Keep doing what you're doing. See if your teacher will give you a crash course in recursion. Read stuff. Practise.