Middlesex Students Shine in French, Computer Science Contests

Middlesex students don’t just compete on the field, ice, court, and river. They debate bills in Model Congress, wage war in Sumo Robot Competitions, and build Mathematical Models for sport. This past spring, a number of students participated—and thrived—in rigorous competitions for both Computer Science and French. Head of Computer Science, Ashok Pillai, and Head of the French Department, Chantal Jordan, update us on the results below!
 
Middlesex excels at American Computer Science League All-Star Contest
 
On Saturday May 28, five Middlesex students traveled to Nashua, NH to participate in the all-day American Computer Science League (ACSL) All-Star contest. Schools were only invited to participate in this event if they had performed well enough during the regular season, which consisted of four contests involving programming problems and written questions. The five students representing Middlesex were Kelly Finke ’17, Ben Kelly ’18, Julia McClellan ’17, Ted Pyne ’18, and Kiara Wahnschafft ’17. They competed in the toughest and most competitive Senior-5 Division against schools from all across the United States as well as international schools from countries such as China and Croatia. 
 
During the team portion of the event, they had three and a half hours to write six computer programs that would be tested against unknown test data to score them points. They only had three laptops at their disposal so they needed to budget their time and resources carefully. During the second part of the event each student took a one-hour written test, and the results also contributed to their overall team score. There was then an hour long intermission as scores were tallied and programs checked, during which time the participants were privileged to hear a fascinating talk and demonstration from the featured speaker Dr. Stephen Wolfram about his new innovative Wolfram Language.
 
Our team scored 87/120 points, which earned them 11th place out of 23 teams in the Senior-5 Division and within striking distance of placing amongst the top 5. Additionally, Julia McClellan was awarded and recognized for scoring one of the top scores in the individual contest. The Middlesex team is hungry and eager to return next year and perform even better. They were excited and exhausted after a long day of programming and computer science, and they all described the experience as “fun”, “interesting”, “challenging”, and “informative.”
 
Middlesex students bring home gold in National French Contest
 
The Grand Concours is an annual National French Contest sponsored by the AATF (American Association of the teachers of French). This year, 85,000 students in all 50 states and Puerto Rico participated in the Grand Concours. Out of the 85,000 students, 20,800 students earned medals (24.5% won a medal). Middlesex School presented 66 students in all the 5 levels in the Grand Concours 38 students out of the 66 students received a medal. Our students did a fine job, indeed, 57.57% of them won a medal.
 
Final medal count: 
 
9 of our students received a Gold medal
 
16 of our students received a Silver medal
 
13 of our students received a Bronze medal
 
Bravo!