Cemetech has a long history of hosting programming contests for the community. Most recently, we held a Lightning Contest (our eleventh contest), and last summer, we hosted Contest #10: Physics. We have had generous sponsors who have provided prizes for these past contests, and now that we have all prizes and a topic for a new contest, we are ready to announce Contest #12: Educational Shenanigans. Since we unoficially announced the topic over a week ago, we are thrilled to see that some Cemetech members have already started their entries, but now it's your turn to brainstorm a contest entry. Cemetech Contest #12 challenges you to create an educational program for the TI-83 Plus/TI-84 Plus. While we will allow games in this contest, our primary challenge to you is to create a program that teaches something, be it geography, geometry, history, literature, foreign language, engineering, physics, music, or any other subject. The rules are simple:

• Write a program or game that teaches a subject. Make it as educational or game-like as you want, as long as it teaches specific skills. This is key: programs that don't qualify as educational also won't qualify for this contest.
  
• Programs must be in TI-BASIC, Axe, or ASM. All 83+, 83+SE, 84+, and 84+SE programs will be tested on a TI-84 Plus Silver Edition running under Doors CS 7.2, so any libraries offered by Doors CS 7.2 may be used. All 84+CSE programs will be tested on a TI-84 Plus C Silver Edition running under Doors CSE 8.1, so any libraries offered by Doors CSE 8.1 may be used.
  
• Contestants may not release any code or binaries before the end of the contest, including asking for programming help publicly or privately. Violators will be disqualified. Projects that have already been released in any form (excluding a contest project topic) already are not eligible for the contest.
  
• The contest will run for 8 weeks, ending August 27th, 2014, at 11:59:59pm Eastern Time. No late entries will be accepted.
  
• All contestants must maintain a topic in the Contests subforum on Cemetech, including a first post that mentions the name, programming language, and topic of the entry.
  
• Four weeks from today, a special prize to be announced will be awarded to the entry that shows the most progress and promise, based on the posted screenshots and updates in the Contest subforum. Progress will be judged by the updates over time. The same entry can theoretically win this progress prize as well as one of the main prizes.
  
• Judging will be performed by the Cemetech administrators (all of whom are disqualified from entering). Results will be posted no later than ten days after the end of the contest.
  
• A grading rubric is attached below. Entries will be graded primarily on their educational value, polish, and appeal to students. Although the focus is on education rather than gaming, educational games are allowed as long as they teach concrete skills. We will be particularly impressed by educational programs reaching beyond math and science.

I'm sure you want to hear more about the prizes. We are very proud to offer two brand-new calculators. The grand prize winner will be awarded one TI-84 Plus C Silver Edition or one TI-Nspire CX, as chosen by the winner. The second-place winner will receive the remaining calculator, and the third-place winner will win a refurbished calculator, likely a spiffy TI-83+SE. Additional Cemetech swag may be added to the prizes at the Cemetech staff's discretion. All participants will earn Cemetech flair in the form of signature bars and respect. As you can see below, our anonymous donor has generously provided six calculators as contest prizes, so you can rest assured that this fall will bring two additional contests where you can win these prizes.

So what are you waiting for? Getting coding, inspire students to use calculator for more than math, and win some calculators!

More Information
Contest #12 Rubric
Contest #12 Rules

Two of these six generously-donated calculators will be awarded as prizes, with the remainder awarded for one or two contests in Fall 2014. A special thanks to our anonymous donor for making this contest possible!

Let more shenanigans be started!
Those calcs tho. I'm aiming for the CSE.

Good luck with your entry, ordelore! I hope that you put in a solid showing, and I hope that you have stiff competition from other enthusiastic and competent coders.

Petition to hereby change the name of the contest to "Educational Shaunanigans".

Is it okay if I participate in this contest even though my TI-BASIC skills are really bad and I'm going to be last place for sure? Or is contest only for experienced programmers? I'm hoping to learn a little myself from participating

Then enter! The contest will probably end up as a learning experience for everyone.

I'm aiming to the CX I hope it can have Ndless.

Good luck to all the participants ! I've already found some ideas.

And good luck to you too! I look forward to seeing your contest topic posted up with those ideas and/or the final idea you choose.

As ordelore said, one of the main points of the contest is pushing people past their current comfort levels as programmers to attack more ambitious projects (as long as they can be completed by the deadline). By all means enter no matter what your skill level is, even if you've never written a calculator program before.

Edit: Matref: The packages are sufficiently old that they compare the TI-Nspire CX to the TI-84+SE instead of the TI-84+CSE, although I'm not sure what exactly that says about the OS version on the calculators inside. Perhaps one of our TI-Nspire experts knows the answer?

Hopefully our contest entrants realize they only have 7 more days before Contest 12 is officially over!

I do.

And you are the first contestant to submit an entry, for which you earn the prize of our respect and admiration. I hope the rest of you remember to upload something a few days before the deadline, just so if you end up missing the deadline you are not completely disqualified.

Cool, thanks for that.

Thank you all for entering into the contest, and getting us your entries! Grading has commenced, and will be posted as soon as we have a winner to announce!

Please be patient, realize that we too have lives and things going on, and we will get the winners announced as soon as we can!