My fellow
INETA Academic Committee member
Andrew Flick put his thoughts in writing about the
Imagine Cup regional competitions held on March 17th at 4 locations in the USA. The 8 winners from the regionals compete at Tech-Ed for the USA Finals, with 1 winner representing the Stars and Stripes at the World Finals in Brazil in July. Andrew has some gripes (mostly gripes) about the way the regional competitions were run. I tend to agree with him on most of his points. Here are my thoughts about the regional logistics:
a) Not only was it long for the competitors to stand around waiting for the judges, it was pure hell standing for almost 7 straight hours for a judge. The schedule was so tight, we did not even eat lunch until 2:15pm. So we get there and 9:30am, and we are literally standing, with no breaks, until 2:15pm (the end of the first 10 competitors judging). Even at a user group meeting there is a 10 minute break every hour or so. There were so many competitors at Princeton (19 or 20), that we had to do that twice, since the room could only hold 10 competitors. So between 9:30am to 5:00pm, we had to stuff our face with the crappy food that was left over after everyone else ate (at noon of course), fill out our judging forms, with accurate scores and feedback, and act like we enjoyed _standing_ all day, all with a roughly 20 minute break between 2:10 and 2:30pm. The only positive thing ... the students had such awesome stuff that time did move pretty quick, there was really never a boring moment. My suggestion: Have each group present on stage, in front of other students.
b) The students should leave with something. Something cool, like a jacket, backpack, Pocket PC, Spot Watch, or that level of coolness. Many of the groups at Princeton drove for 8 to 10 hours to get there. The guys from Cornell in NY not only had to drive that long, but they got a flat tire along the way. So imagine that, 4 engineers from Cornell stranded on the side of the NJ Turnpike looking at a flat tire, wondering what was next. I am glad I wasn't there. No to mention the guys from UMASS, Boston U, Virginia Commonwealth, schools from all over the Northeast, who either drove all night to get to Princeton, and woke up super early to make it there by 10am. As a judge, I felt like a real jack-ass telling these guys (at 10:30pm) what they needed to do to improve their apps for next year, then wishing them a safe 10 hour drive home as they lugged all their equipment back into their cars. If they all had a nice something to go back with, at least I would have felt better.
c) Rules need to be crystal clear. If you do not have an app to demo, don't show up. There were 3 groups at Princeton that did not have an app, just slides. In the 20 minute per presentation lifecycle, that is 1 hour saved from a 12 hour day of judging. That is a lot of time. The group from James Madison University, who won the Windows Challenge, had an amazing application; it was an adaptive algorithm that checked the contents of luggage at the airport for dangerous chemicals. They won the Windows Challenge. They did not come close in Imagine Cup. Sure, it was cool, but the whole app was an algorithm. The UI was very Spartan. The presentation, since they could not have the device that checks the contents of “air” at the competition, was more of a “imagine 2 people in 2 airports getting on a plane and ...” ... you see what I mean. There was nothing to actually see. The app was the algorithm. Needless to say, they were very upset when they lost. Here is a team that won the Windows Challenge, has meetings with government contractors about their algorithm, and even is doing a presentation for the Chief Scientist in the Office of the President. Not bad for some engineers from James Madison! But, here is the point .. why did they lose? I would guess the rules for the competition were not clear enough. Some ideas I have for rules -
- App must be completing working and running on the equipment at the competition.
- App cannot depend on Internet access at the competition to work Presentation can only have 5 slides max.
- App must demonstrate the web services help page as well as the UI.
- App must have a Windows Forms, ASP.NET, Tablet PC or Pocket PC UI.
- App must be interesting and exciting. Algorithms belong in another contest.
- App must have marketing, sales and development in the presentation. Why you ask? Well, at the end of the day, the winning team is representing the entire US of A. Against 20 or 30 other countries. You better believe they would love nothing more to beat the USA in a programming contest! We need to put the best of the best in front of the world judges for the 30 minutes they have.
d) Leave the pie-in-the-sky future additions out of the competition. There should be no team in the finals based on what the app "could do".
So that is my opinion. Overall, I would grade the Imagine Cup a B-. Next year, it will be an A. I think Microsoft needs to promote it earlier to students. I know INETA Academic needs to get judges and mentors for local competitions earlier. I think the logistics was just a first time thing. Next year, regionals will run smoother. It was an awesome competition, and the stuff I saw was extremely impressive. I am looking forward to Tech-Ed to see the USA finals. It should be a great time.