The third round of the CyberPatriot Cybersecurity Competition has ended with some amazing accomplishments by Mackenzie’s students!

CyberPatriot, with over participating teams internationally, is a competition that focuses on providing students with learning opportunities through hands-on simulated environments in a competitive environment. It aims to help develop the critical, digital skills necessary to pursue post-secondary education STEM programs.

Mackenzie has participating teams each year with incredible performance, and this year has been no exception. Notable Mackenzie teams for the third round of CyberPatriot Platinum Division include Premature Optimization, placing in Canada; Teapot, placing ; and Art Academy, placing . In the Gold Division, Dropout placed in Canada and internationally.

These results will determine which teams will have the chance to compete in nationals for a spot in the final round of the 2020-2021 CyberPatriot Cybersecurity Competition. The teams moving on will be announced in March.

Another month, another MOOSE computing contest... Registration for February's MOOSE is now open!

MOOSE, a competitive programing competition, is an awesome way to have fun problem-solving with your friends while also brushing up on your coding skills. Every skill level is welcome and it’s up to you to decide to compete in either the junior or senior division.

This month’s MOOSE will be hosted over 2 days, from February 6-7. The contest will last a total of 2.5 hours. You may start at any time within the given timeframe, but note that starting after 9:30PM on February 7 will result in the contest ending before the 2.5 hours pass.

Registration is now open for all schools until 11:55PM on February 4! Students must register a team here if they did not do so in a previous month. Visit our MOOSE info page for more information!

William Lyon Mackenzie’s Computer Programming Team, otherwise known as MCPT, has ended off 2020 with many notable achievements to look back on!

Computing Contests

Among MCPT’s various events, the Lyon’s Computing Contests (LCC) and MOOSE are two of the most popular ones each year. LCC, hosted for students from Mackenzie, has brought together approximately 70 Mackenzie students each month for the past 5 years - and students outside of Mackenzie can join in on the fun with the MOOSE contest, which offers the LCC problem sets on the MCPT website. The contests are very successful, and this year was no exception. With 78 teams from 17 schools across 2 countries participating in December’s LCC and MOOSE, the impact these contests have on students is shown by the numbers. Students displayed an impressive breadth of knowledge in the field of programming with 12 different coding languages used throughout 1251 submissions, and over 192 correct problem solutions submitted to the website!

The LCC and MOOSE contests are a wonderful starting point for students to begin their journey towards becoming a top-performing competitive programmer, as it was for MCPT’s Vice President of Competitive Christopher Trevisan. His path to winning a silver medal at the International Olympiad of Informatics this September began with the Junior-level LCC, displaying how the contests prepare students for distinguished programming competitions such as the ECOO contest hosted by the Educational Computing Organization of Ontario and the Canadian Computing Competition offered by Waterloo.

CyberPatriot

Mackenzie’s cybersecurity teams have also made huge accomplishments in these past few months. The passing of two rounds of the CyberPatriot competition has displayed the wide range of skills Mackenzie’s students have developed over the years. Competing against over 2500 teams internationally, notable Mackenzie teams include Teapot, placing 3rd in Round 1 and 9th in Round 2; Premature Optimization, placing 13th in Round 1 and 8th in Round 2; and Art Academy, placing 160th in Round 1 and 56th in Round 2. We are extremely proud of our teams for their incredible performance, and hope that the upcoming year will only continue to give Mackenzie’s students opportunities to shine!

Feeling a bit rusty on your coding skills after the 2-week break? Well, MCPT’s January computing contests are here to help!

LCC

The Lyon's Computing Competition runs from 3:30PM to 6:00PM, with 5 problems and 2.5 hours to solve them. Our upcoming LCC will be hosted on January 8.

If you haven’t registered a team yet, be sure to do so here before January 7, 11:55PM. This is the last chance for students to register a team for the 2020-2021 school year. Note that the same team name will be used to sign up for any future LCC events.

Please DO NOT fill out this form if you registered a team last month; you are automatically registered for each month's LCC and will simply be asked to complete an in-site registration the day of the contest.

(LCC is only available to students of William Lyon Mackenzie C.I.)

MOOSE

MOOSE, a competitive programing competition, is an awesome way to have fun problem-solving with your friends while also brushing up on your coding skills. Every skill level is welcome and it’s up to you to decide to compete in either the junior or senior division.

This contest will be hosted over 2 days, from January 9-10. It will last a total of 2.5 hours. You may start at any time within the given timeframe but note that starting after 9:30PM on January 10 will result in the contest ending before the 2.5 hours pass.

Registration is open for all schools until January 7, 11:55PM. Students must register a team here if they did not do so in our previous month’s contest. Visit our MOOSE info page for more information!

(MOOSE is only available to students outside of William Lyon Mackenzie C.I.)

The annual Canadian Computing Competition (CCC), hosted by University of Waterloo, is a fun challenge for secondary school students with an interest in programming. It is an opportunity for students to test their ability in designing, understanding and implementing algorithms. Students may sign up for either the Junior or Senior division. Those who excel in the Senior division have a chance to participate in the Canadian Computing Olympiad (CCO), and possibly move on to the International Olympiad in Informatics (IOI).

Which division should I choose?

The Junior division is targeted mainly to students who are new to competitive programming; it is generally recommended to Grade 9 and 10 students who are looking to grow in skill and knowledge. The Senior division is much more challenging, the problems often requiring knowledge of complex programming algorithms. The Senior division is highly recommended for students applying to University of Waterloo for post-secondary; competing in Senior level CCC in Grades 11 and 12 is a great way to boost your supplementary application!

All students will be required to have a CCCGrader account with the University of Waterloo in order to participate. If you do not have one from a previous year, you must register an account here with the school number 057001119.

CCC 2021 will be hosted on February 17, 2021. Registration will require a fee of $8. The form will be open until January 4, 2021 at 11:55PM.

Register for the competition here, and learn more about CCC here.

Please note that participation in at least 3 LCCs is required for the CCC registration.

TL;DR Participation in LCC is MANDATORY for CCC Registration

The University of Waterloo's Canadian Computing Competition (CCC) is coming soon(ish) — and to practice, MCPT offers the Lyon's Computing Contest (LCC).

This year, in order to ensure that you are well prepared for CCC, it is mandatory that you participate in at least LCCs in order to be eligible to register for CCC.

If you didn't have the chance to sign up for this past LCC, don't worry! Registrations for the next LCC will be re-opened soon for any teams who wish to meet the participation requirement.

MCPT is thrilled to announce the return of the MOOSE contest!

MOOSE, a competitive programing competition, is an awesome way to have fun problem-solving with your friends while also brushing up on your coding skills. Every skill level is welcome and it’s up to you to decide to compete in either the junior or senior division.

This month’s MOOSE will be hosted over 2 days, from December 5-6. The contest will last a total of 2.5 hours. You may start at any time within the given timeframe, but note that starting after 9:30PM on December 6 will result in the contest ending before the 2.5 hours pass.

Registration is now open for all schools until 11:55PM on December 3! Students must register their teams at https://mcpt.ca/moose/signup/. Visit https://mcpt.ca/moose/ for more information!

Grab your friends and form a team because LCC Team Registration is now open!

The Lyon's Computing Competition is a programming contest held by MCPT regularly throughout the school year. Whether you're just starting out or you’re already a seasoned pro at competitive programming, there's a division for you! It's a great opportunity to work with your team to solve challenging coding problems and gain insight into the competitive programming world. Plus, the top performing senior teams will be able to compete at ECOO (provided it runs) against other schools across Ontario.

Each competition runs from 3:30PM to 6:00PM, with 5 problems and 2.5 hours to solve them. Our upcoming competition will be hosted on December 4.

Register your team at https://mcpt.ca/lcc/signup before December 2, 11:55PM. Note that the same team name will be used to sign up for any future LCC events.

(LCC is only available to students of William Lyon Mackenzie C.I.)

Executives have been chosen! Thank you to everyone who applied — we really appreciate your dedication and commitment to this club and it truly is amazing to see so many people with a passion for what we do. If you didn't receive a position this year, don't be discouraged! We'll be looking for new executives next year.

MCPT is officially accepting applications for the Competitive Branch!

MCPT's Competitive Branch is the branch known to Mackenzie for, well, competitive programming! From problem setting to contest hosting, this branch is the heart and soul of Mackenzie's eager programming community. If you would like to be part of the team, be sure to apply with the link below. The deadline for applications is November 13, 11:55PM.

Part of the application process this year is a contest to test your skills at both solving problems and explaining solutions. Attempt all problems — they are not in the order of difficulty. We do not expect anyone to get perfect! After finishing, you must write an editorial for any problems you've solved or gotten partial points on. Submit these as part of your application.

You can find the contest here: https://mcpt.ca/contest/exec20

Note that this is part one of a two-stage application process. If successful, you will be invited to an interview with the presidents and vice presidents.

Apply here: https://mcpt.ca/execs/apply — Make sure to login with your student email
Role descriptions: https://mcpt.ca/execs/roles

The International Olympiad in Informatics (IOI) is a competitive programming competition hosted annually for high school students from around the world. However, the journey to IOI is not easy — to compete in the highly esteemed Olympiad, students are selected through a top four performance in a national computing contests. In Canada, these are the Canadian Computing Competition and Canadian Computing Olympiad.

IOI itself runs for 2 days with 3 extremely challenging problems each. The contestants have 5 hours to solve these problems and are then placed based on their scores. Christopher Trevisan, Co-Vice President of MCPT’s Competitive branch, placed 83 out of 343 contestants from 90 countries around the world, earning a silver medal.

MCPT is extremely proud of Christopher for his achievement, and we hope that he continues to display excellence in all his future programming endeavours!