• UIL CS Current Topics List (2008 - 2009)
• UIL CS Practice Materials
• Useful Links
• IDEs
• References
• Hands-on Practice Problems
• Third Party Materials
• Interesting Applications of Computer Science
• Reading from Files
• Other Contests
• District Hands on materials
• Older Materials and Annoucements

May 25, 2009: Updated page with practice material, both written exams and programming problems. Moved older announcements to this page.

February 29, 2008: The revised contest director's guide for the pilot of the hands on contest at Districts has been posted. I have also updated the materials at the district hands on page with the 2008 version. (No significant changes from the 2007 materials.)

UIL Computer Science Page

The Sun Microsystems Java homepage

Download the Java JDK Version 6.0

View the Java Standard Library Documentation (Version 6.0)

Download the Java Standard Library Documentation Scroll down to the link for "J2SE 6.0 Documentation" and click to download. The instructions for  installing the documentation are at this web page.

The Java compiler for Macintoshes

The PC^2 judging environment. This is a networked judging environment that may be used to judge hands on contests.

The BlueJ IDE

The JCreator IDE

TextPad. (Not really an IDE. A text editor, with some built in programming capability. (Syntax highlighting, ability to compile and run Java programs with keyboard shortcuts.)

The Java Tutorial Online

JavaBat. Java bat was designed by Nick Parlante of Stanford University. These are simple programming problems that do not require reading from a file, but are very good for practicing logic, Strings, arrays, decision making, and loops. Problems can be written, compiled, and checked online.

Universidad de Valladolid hands on programming problems archive and online judging system.

The USA Computing Olympiad Training Program Gateway. More hands on programming problems.

Top Coder. A site that runs many programming contests. You must register to use the site. The practice rooms are especially useful.  Top Coder has a high school specific contest. See the link for more details.

The Computer Contest. A free contest with participation allowed over the internet.

An interactive practice site by Louis Fleming.

Best of Texas Contest. A distributed contest run over a period of several weeks.

Hexco Academic

Blue Pelican Java. An online textbook for high school Computer Science using Java.

A+ Computer Science Teaching Materials and Practice UIL tests and packets. Practice materials at this page.

APCentral. For teachers of AP computer science. Especially useful are the teacher's resources pages available from the course homepage. APCS A homepage.

A traffic simulation for automated cars using a reservation system. (When you choose the Simulate on this page you must then select the Simulator button at the top left of the follow on page and select run to start the simulation.) This is one of Kurt Dresner's research areas. Kurt is a CS PhD candidate at UT. Look at this movie of a later version of the system that allows for turns. And compare it to this video of urban traffic in India.

Alice. An fun, introductory tool for learning to program. From CMU.

Playing with fire. "Animated Suspended Particle Explosions." Examples of what can is being done in the area of computer graphics, by Professor Okan Arikan of UT.

Goggle Trends. Compare you favorite Hollywood star with computer science.

Java 6.0 is the official version for the hands on portion of the Regional and State contests. The Scanner class, a member of the Java Standard Library in version 5.0.

Here is a discussion about the ins and outs of using the Scanner class to solve problem number 2 from the regional hands on contest. 

• Scanner is in the util package, not the lang package so you need to include the line
  
   import.util.Scanner;
  
   at the top of the class.
   

• To create a Scanner object and connect it to a file you must create a File object based on the name of that file. This can be done with one line;
  
  Scanner s = new Scanner( new File("scores.dat"));
  
  Remember all programs are judged assuming the file is in the same directory as the compiled class file so do not put any path information on the file, just the file name. To use the file class you must include the line
  
  import.io.File; 
  
  at the top of your program.
   

• Unfortunately instantiating a File object can result in in an IOException and this is a checked exception so you either have to use a try-catch block or declare that the method that contains the code that generates the checked exception throws an IOException. In actual programming practice it would be much better to include a try-catch block, but for educational and programming contest purposes it is much easier to simply declare that main throws an IOException. Thus the declaration of the main method looks like this:
  
  public static void main(String[] args) throws IOException
  

• IOException must also be imported. This can either be done as a separate import statement:
  
  import java.io.IOException;
  
  or since the program now needs multiple classes from the io package we can use the wildcard import. Again, not the best programming practice, but for contests, not a bad idea.
  
  import java.io.*;

Here is problem 2 from the 2004 regional hands on contest, solved using the Scanner class.

• The American Computer Science League
   
• Best of Texas Contest. A distributed contest run over a period of several weeks.
   
• Top Coder. A site that runs many programming contests. You must register to use the site. The practice rooms are especially useful.  Top Coder has a high school specific contest. See the link for more details.
   
• USACO The USA Computing Olympiad. The USACO holds six Internet Contests during the academic year, and in the late Spring conducts the US Open, a proctored exam.