Coding Competition Teams

About the ACSL

Since 1977, the American Computer Science League (ACSL) has organized a year long contest for students K-12 in computer programming and computer science. Every year over 500 teams from around the world compete in an year-round series of tests and challenges.

Students and professionals compete with each other on solving computer programming challenges. Some competitions can be completed in a couple hours, and some take days and weeks to solve.  There are a number coding competition leagues for high school students, and a few are also open to students in K-12.  One of them is called the American Computer Science League (ACSL).

The Competition

The ACSL competition tests both computer science and computer programming.  Computer Science topics include binary/hex/octal number systems, Boolean algebra and graph theory and Computer Programming problems test the student's logical skills by coming up with code that takes a certain input and converts it into a specified output.

Every 2 months, students take an online 30 minute 5 question short answer test and a programming challenge to be solved in 72 hours.

Our Team

Penguin Coding School will field teams in the Junior Division (grades 6-8) and the Elementary Division (grades 3-6). Because of the nature of the team, we can only accept a small number of students.

Like all our coding & robotics classes, Penguin Coding wants the students to learn a lot but also enjoy the experience.  We will conduct a series of tryout classes during the next couple of weeks and select students who seem to genuinely enjoy learning advanced material and coding challenges. 

We will look at each applicant's availability and try to find meeting times that work for the most number of students who are accepted into the team. Students must be able to attend at least 80% of our weekly 90 minute classes. Tryouts are free.  If we accept the student and you decide to join, there is a charge per semester.

ACSL Interest Form