Remember, there is no punishment for registering so you can access the prompt and then deciding it is too much and watching Netflix instead.

The contest changes a little bit every year.

I will try to give a general idea of how it has run in the past with a few examples.
The cool part about the State Farm Contest is that you can work from home!
You download and open the problem statement at noon on the day of the contest. It provides a general explanation of the project and a list of baseline requirements that they would like you to meet in order to submit. An additional section outlines ‘extra points’ which can be earned for including additional features. The last category of additional features is ‘creativity’, points in this category are earned for cool features you have added that were not in the problem statement or additional list but that they judge to be a worthy addition to the project.

For example, the first year I participated they wanted a high-low game.
The baseline criteria to submit were to have the computer pick a number between 1 and 100 and prompt the user for a guess
if the user guessed too high it was to respond ‘Lower’
if the user guessed too low it was to respond ‘Higher’
if the user was correct it was to display a congratulatory message
The additional features which could be added were:
GUI (the baseline only required command line), keeping track of the users cumulative score over multiple games, the ability to close the game and start back at the same point when the game was reopened, the ability to keep a ‘high scores’ list, the ability to have multiple players, and finally the creativity category.

Last year the prompt was to make a program that would help a user calculate the fuel economy and greenhouse gas emissions of a vehicle given specific equations they provided. The baseline application had to accept entry for one vehicle’s MPG, class, weight, and a few other things. Additional points were awarded for multiple cars, calculating ‘total green house gas’ for a family, GUI, saving the vehicles profiles, comparing two or more vehicles to one another and so on. As well as the final creativity section.

Are they scouting for new undergraduate employees?
Not really, – but kinda. While I am not aware of any jobs that have come directly from participation n the contest State Farm does have an amazing Internship Program ( http://www.statefarm.com/about/careers/internships/internships.asp ) and having competed in the contest certainly gives you something to speak to the recruiters about during the interview if you choose to pursue it. I am not sure when the hiring cycle for next summer’s intern’s ends, but when I did it I received a decision during the first week of November, so it would probably be soon. There is much more to the interviews, but it is nice when they ask “So what do you know about State Farm?” to be able to talk about the contest. And your explanation of your approach tells them about how you think as a programmer and computer scientist. Also SF internships can count for UIS AST course credit.

What will the competition entail-debugging, create from scratch?
Since the program is written by you from scratch (although they withhold the right to provide code if they choose they have not in the past) it would also entail debugging your own code. If you choose to work with a partner then you would have to co-ordinate with them to combine your code.

I’m interested in participating in the competition, just unsure of how it’s going to be conducted or if there was a minimum amount of knowledge in Java you need to have to be considered?
For the base line submission if you are comfortable with
1. Loops
     • for()
     • while()
     • do…while()
2. Conditionals
     • if()…elseif()..then
     • and your basic variable types
     • int and Integers
     • doubles and floats
3. Strings and the string manipulation methods
4. As well as basic system input and output, or a GUI

then you should be okay. The more advanced your solution gets the more complicated you could make it. Including GUI classes or writing classes of your own would add to the things you would need to know.

Semi-finalists are chosen from the submitted entries. The chosen semi finalists recieve an $800 prize and go to State Farm’s Corporate headquarters in Bloomington-Normal, IL. There they explain and defend their solution for a chance to win an additional $1,500.

If you have any additional questions please let me know. In addition if you are looking for someone to work with let me know as there have been a few other people who have emailed me and I might be able to connect you with them.

I will have the notes and documents from the last meeting posted, as well as an email sent out to those who were there, over the weekend. Midterms have got me swamped at the moment.

Thanks,

Karl

What will he be making from his diamonds?