Introducing Mackenzie’s first-ever Holiday Game Jam!

Work together with up to 4 of your friends over the course of 96 hours to create a video game for glory and the chance to win prizes!

What is a game jam?

The Holiday Game Jam is both a competitive and social event where teams build and design video games and then pitch their ideas to the group. It’s a great opportunity to make new friends, create something cool, and learn a thing or two! Whether you’re proficient with game development or are trying it out for the first time, we have something for everyone.

New to game dev? No worries! We’ll be running many different workshops over the course of the Holiday Game Jam, topics include how to create Tetris controls or program jump physics! If you ever feel tired or want to take a quick break from the competition we’ll also be hosting many fun activities and games for you to participate in! And for those who participated in MCPT’s Game Dev series, your points will carry over into this event.

Didn’t get the chance to check out our game dev series? Visit our Learning website to check out our lessons.

Dates and Times

The competition will run from December 27th at noon to December 31st at noon. Teams will have the full 96 hours to design a game and pitch. Note that you may only start working on your project once the competition window begins on December 27th at noon. A full itinerary will be released closer to the event date.

Registration

Sign up in teams of up to 4 by December 26th at midnight. There is no registration fee; all students currently attending William Lyon Mackenzie can participate!

Register with your student email via this form

Judging and Prizes

There will be a theme for the event, which will be announced during our opening ceremony. Creativity counts - original ideas count even more. For a full list of judging categories, rules, and criteria, visit our Devpost page .

Looking for someone to cozy up to this winter? Well unfortunately MCPT doesn’t do matchmaking, but we sure do know how to make hoodies that will be just as warm!

We’re excited to announce MCPT hoodie orders for the 21-22 school year (yay!). You can expect embroidered royal blue at the front and side, along with optional name personalization at the back. Orders will be accepted until Thursday, December 23 at midnight, so be sure to fill out the following form before then!

https://mcpt.ca/hoodies

Psst, hoodies will cost less when we order more, so be sure to spread the word!

MCPT is excited to announce pre-registrations for the CCC!

Hosted this year on February 16th, 2022 by the University of Waterloo, the Canadian Computing Competition (CCC) is the premiere individual coding contest in Canada. It follows a similar format to the LCC hosting a Junior and Senior division with five problems held in a 3 hour contest time.

The Junior division is aimed towards Grade 9 and 10 students just starting out in competitive programming, where the Senior division incorporates more advanced algorithms and may be better suited for Grade 11 and 12 students. We still encourage everyone to try out the contest, especially if you’re in Grade 11 or 12, as it’s a good opportunity to test your skills and boost your University of Waterloo application!

Sign up with this form by January 5th, 2022 at midnight:

https://mcpt.ca/ccc

To participate, you'll need a CCCGrader account - if you already have one that was previously registered under our school and are able to log in, you can use the same account. If you're new to the competition or our school, sign up for an account here with our school number 057001119:

More information about the CCC can be found on the CEMC’s website.

Get ready for our second Lyon’s Computing Competition (LCC) of the year!

The LCC is a school-wide competitive programming competition hosted by MCPT. Sign up to enhance your coding abilities, and solve 5 challenging problems alongside your friends! The event will run virtually through Zoom on Thursday, December 9th from 4:30 - 7:00pm. Cameras will only be required at the start of the contest to authenticate your participation.

Missed the chance to previously sign up for LCC? No worries! We’re accepting new teams to participate in both the Junior and Senior divisions. If you wish to create a new team or change your current team members, register at https://mcpt.ca/lcc/signup .

And remember, anyone who wishes to compete in Waterloo’s Canadian Computing Competition (CCC) must participate in at least three of our monthly LCCs.

Good luck!

Ever wondered how the games you play on your phone or computer are made? MCPT presents the all-new Game Dev Series, starting this Thursday, November 11th at 4:15pm!

The Game Dev Series is a great opportunity for both beginner and advanced coders alike, whether you want to get your running start into the world of game development or if you want to sharpen your skills with our fun challenges.

Inspired by Bloons Tower Defense, you will create a fully functional game by the end of our three interactive workshops. We will go over how to implement ideas into game features and dive into the mechanics of a tower-defense game.

This series will leave you with everything you need to know about Game Dev so that you’re prepared for our first annual Game Jam, happening during winter break! For those interested in participating in the Game Jam, it is recommended to participate in the Game Dev Series to earn participation and challenge points that will count towards the Game Jam.

See you on Thursday!

P.S. Check out our new home for all things Learning at learning.mcpt.ca! Over the course of this year, we’ll be adding resources, leaderboards, and more.

Teams of four. Two and a half hours. One premiere coding contest.

You and your teammates are invited to sign up for our first Lyon's Computing Competition of 2021!

The Lyon's Computing Competition (LCC) is a team programming contest held by MCPT every month. Teams consist of 2, 3, or 4 members. Whether you're just starting to program or have practiced competitive programming for years, there's a fun challenge for everyone! If you’re a bit younger or newer to programming, our Junior Division will be perfect for you! For those who are older or seek a greater challenge, the Senior Division is a great choice!

LCC is a great opportunity to work with friends to solve challenging coding problems and gain insight into the competitive programming world. Our inaugural competition will have five problems and will be hosted virtually on Thursday, October 28th from 4:30pm to 7:00pm.

Anyone looking to participate in the esteemed Canadian Computing Competition in February must also first participate in a minimum of 3 of our monthly LCC’s in order to qualify.

Register your team now at https://mcpt.ca/lcc/signup by Tuesday, October 26th at midnight! Note that to maintain your rating status and points the same team name will be used to sign up for any future LCC events.

The LCC is only available to students of William Lyon Mackenzie C.I. For those from other schools, we offer the MOOSE Contest, which uses the same problem sets but with a windowed time period over a few days. Look out for signups in the near future!

MCPT is just about ready to start running again!

With lessons, game jams, and new team events planned, we can't wait to get started with the year! To join, be sure to fill in the following signup form.

To stay informed when these weekly events happen, join our Google Classroom.

What can you expect from us this year?

• Lyon's Computing Contest - The LCC is a Mackenzie-wide coding contest. Form a team of up to 4 and show off your coding skills. LCC consists of a Junior and Senior division, so there's something for everyone, regardless of your experience level!

• Competitive Lessons - Learn about common algorithms and concepts used in coding contests. The material is commonly tested in coding interviews and on national contests such as CCC! Topics covered include Graph Theory, Dynamic Programming, Data Structures and more!

• GameDev Series - A series of game development workshops held by the Learning branch. Using Processing, you'll acquire the skills to make a game from scratch.

• Game Jam (Winter break) - A 36-hour competition taking place during winter break where teams will be challenged to make a game. The event will be filled with workshops and other games to participate in. Prizes will be awarded to winners!

• Hackathon (March break) - The hackathon will give you an opportunity to compete with a team of up to 4 members and design a program of your choice. Participants will be asked to create a program showcasing their creativity and coding skills to present to the judges. The hackathon will be filled with workshops and games as well as prizes once again for the winners.

• Mentorship (Afterschool daily) - Sessions where you can ask an experienced exec for help with content in the ICS courses.

July, August, and now September - with the start of a new school year comes the applications for our new exec team!

Join us in one of Mackenzie's largest and most prestigious clubs through making graphics, writing contests, teaching students, and really anything programming! Shortly after applications close, you will receive an email if you have been selected for an interview. A quick summary of this year's branches below:

Communications - Making all of our beautiful posters and helping out with the public side of our events.

Competitive - Good old competitive with the same contests but with a focus on more engaging lessons.

Learning - Teaching more general programming and ICS-related topics with some fun, interactive events planned.

Judge - Making sure all of our technological infrastructure doesn't disappear in to any internet black holes.

Make sure to fill in the form with your student email. Best of luck! :D

Apply: https://mcpt.ca/execs/apply/2021/

Role Descriptions: https://mcpt.ca/execs/roles

Submissions end September 22nd at 11:59pm.

The school year has finally ended, and with it, another season of LCC and MOOSE competitions. 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. All contests were hosted virtually.

This year offered 10 LCC and MOOSE contests combined from December 2020 to April 2021, with 221 212 lines of code submitted over 650 hours by 111 participating teams. There were a total of 491 correct submissions, each having an average of 8 other submissions. This led to a total of 4 396 submissions throughout the contests, with most of the MOOSE submissions being made between 2:00PM-6:00PM. Most correct solutions were coded in C++, with an AC rate of 16% - but only 2% higher than Java and Python! Java, however, ran into the most MLEs (memory limit exceeded) and TLEs (time limit exceeded) while Python had the highest rates of CEs (compile error) and ABs (aborted).

Though this year was particularly difficult, MCPT pulled through with a thriving community and great memories to look back on — thanks to you. We truly appreciate each and every one of you all for your support throughout the past few months. You took the time to participate in our competitions, and you are the reason MCPT can continue to inspire, teach, and encourage students across the TDSB. We hope that you'll continue to support us in the upcoming years — but until then, enjoy the summer break and keep coding!

This year's CyberTitan Finals has finally ended - with Mackenzie's team placing top two!

CyberTitan 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.

Participating teams must display exceptional performance for three rounds to be selected to compete against top teams across the country. Placing out of the teams was Teapot, with Grade 11 Mackenzie students Steven Guikal, Celeste Luo, Nathan Lu, Matthew Li, Tracy Wang, and Quentin Fan-Chiang; and placing was Premature Optimization, with Grade 12 Mackenzie students Theodore Preduta, Larry Yuan, Andy Cai, Feng Xiong, and Om Patel. 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!