And now for the actual computer science part of the trip, the part that made it all legitimate and got us the school board funding to go to Los Angeles. If it hadn't been for this competition then we wouldn't have been there in the first place, so I figure it's pretty important and I should include it in the web-log.

The next morning we got up bright and early (well, not bright, but it was certainly early) and hightailed it to the local high school that hosted the competition (Troy High School, home of the Warriors). Soon we had our five programming problems, and three and a half hours to complete them in. Before we were allowed into our room to start programming, we went over the problems and discussed any difficult issues we had with them so we could go right into the hard code when we got to our room.

It was pretty crazy in the senior room, where I was. I had to do this whacked-out cycles problem. Cycles, for those who are unaware of their existance or their deeper meaning, are data path diagrams; if you didn't understand that, then just forget about it. Out of a possible ten points for my program, I received one, which isn't bad, considering that when the judge ran it, it was only about 1/2 finished. It wasn't really a very difficult problem, but I stink, and am unable to do such complex things.

The rest of our team had about the same luck. We completed the two easy programs first: the Asian's program got eight out of ten points and the flag program got a perfect ten points (the flag program was super-simple; you know, just your basic character string with a "switch...case" statement for translating letters; no biggee). Also, the Asian regained the two points he lost on the weird numbers program by print out random values on another program we didn't finish.

So, understandably we felt pretty badly after the programming session. The intermediate team did even sorse than the seniors, with only thirteen out of a possible forty points on the programming section. After that came "the test." It was twelve stinking hard questions on computer stuff in one short hour. I used some crazy guessing skills to get about half of my guesses right. It turns out that I made a nine out of twelve, better than anyone else in our group (the Asian got an eight, but he had stayed up late studying and only gotten one hour of sleep, so it was understandable).

And then, the reason for going to Los Angeles seemed suddenly pretty pointless. When the directors called out the team rankings, both of our teams came in dead last place. The intermediate team at least tied for last, but the senior team's combined score of fifty-four (combining the programming and test scores) was twenty-five points behind the next team's score. We were very demoralized.

Mrs. Rountree gave a very heartfelt speech (well, OK; not heartfelt, but she did comment) about this year's "learning experience," and she said that while she didn't expect us to place very high, she hadn't planned on dead last either. Many empty platitudes were thrown around the SUV on the way back. Many promises to practice more next year were made by the soon-to-be seniors. Mrs. Rountree said we might have a harder time getting funding to come again next year after sucking this year, though.

Finally, after a long day of computer nerdiness and many jokes on the Asian kid, we came back to the hotel and then went out to eat at a pretty cool pizza place, called Marri's or Marrio's or something Italian like that. Spike and I shared a very good pepperoni and sausage pizza, which was very filling after a hard day of computer science. A good long chat was had with Mrs. Rountree about her high school and college days, and butter and ice packs were thrown across the divider between the senior and junior team booths. I sort of doubt it was really Italian, though, since most of the workers looked Mexican.