Welcome to the 2023 annual informatics challenge!
The purpose of this is to have some fun trying out things that you might not have previously tried, and to learn something new. It's also a contest, so you will have the chance to win fabulous* prizes**!
Below are a series of questions of varying difficulty. Each question will be worth varying points. Some of these questions are language specific, while others can be completed however you'd like. Either way, please show your work/code. I've tried to specify in each header if the questions are language specific, but feel free to ask for clarification if needed.
I'm writing the questions to be either a task or specific question, such that it is unambiguous if the answer is right. If you do the task or answer the question correctly you get full points. No partial credit.
I am asking participants to specify their experience level so I can split folks into two categories. I'll be awarding two trophies, one for each category.
- Beginners are those that are just getting started and have been doing informatics regularly for a year or less.
- You should likely submit as Advanced if you have been doing this for a while and if all the beginner questions seem really easy and the harder questions don't seem too bad.
There are several questions, so I'm giving two weeks to complete everything. You don't have to complete all the questions, I'll be defining winners of the two categories based on the highest total points. If you're the only one who enters, you can win by answering just one question! Last year there was only one person in the beginner category, so they won by default!
Feel free to do internet searches to figure things out, though I'm asking that you don't use chat-GPT or any AI methods to generate your answers as you won't learn anything from that (and that's half the point of all this).
You can put your answers in-line in the Rmd file or you can provide your answers another way if you prefer.
The due date will be April 18th at 11:59 PM
Feel free to ask for clarification on anything!
* a plastic
** trophy, though it may be a bit delayed since I'm in the process of fixing my 3D printer. It shouldn't take too long though.