Wednesday, May 18, 2011

Summer pyGames Registration Open

The 2011 Summer pyGames event is now accepting registrations for student teams and volunteer coordinators. Registration will remain open until the competition begins on 11 June at 9:00 AM US Eastern time.

Summer pyGames

The Summer pyGames project is a six-week long competition during which high school students develop open-source educational software and games to be used and distributed to schools in South Carolina. Many of last year's competing teams presented at the FIRST Championship in St Louis. The program has also been showcased at the FIRST Robotics Palmetto Regional, POSSCON and INNOVENTURE Southeast.

Competition Details

The Summer pyGames will begin on June 11th at 9am with the announcement of this year's challenge. Students will have 6 weeks to create a new video game or modify previous games submitted to the competition. Scoring, theme, and rules will be announced at the season kickoff.

Teams may be made up of 1-7 students. The competition is geared for high school age students, high school graduates for 2011 are welcome to participate. Younger students may be admitted to the competition upon request. All teams must have an adult contact who can communicate directly with the Summer pyGames coordinators.

Resources will be available on the Summer pyGames website, and additional forums and chat channels will be made available to registered teams. Volunteers will be available to assist students with questions regarding their projects.

The projects will be graded by professional programmers, graphic artists, audio professionals, teachers, and students.

Sponsors

The Python Software Foundation has given the Summer pyGames organization a grant of US$1,000. After combining the grant with contributions from One Laptop Per Child, BAE Systems, Reaction Apps LLC, The Palmetto Project, BOSCH, and FIRST Robotics Team 342, the organizers plan to offer netbook computers as the grand prize for the competition this year.

Additional prizes and donations are still needed for the 2011 season. Donations can also be made via Paypal at the Summer pyGames website. Summer pyGames is a 100% volunteer run non-profit organization (501(c)3 under the Palmetto Project). All donations go directly toward prizes for the students.