CS Day 2014 Web Competition Rules | CS | SIU

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CS Day 2014 Web Competition Rules

To make sure all participating teams are on equal footing, we require all teams start their project from scratch, and observe the following rules:

  1. Use only the desktop/notebook computers provided, and do not bring/use any electronics (cellphones, iPods/iPads, Tablets, Laptops, etc.) to the room designated to your team.
  2. Can only use printed materials as references such as books, and do not bring/use any digital materials, for example, code premade and stored on a flash drive that may be used for or aid the completion.
  3. Will only have limited internet access to a few designated relevant websites as listed below (general internet connection has been cut off):
  • http://www.wikipedia.org/ (may furnish you any needed knowledge)
  • http://www.ilsos.gov/facilityfinder/facilityfinder?command=getFacilityDetails&facilityId=026(the local authority of traffic)
  • www.google.com (only “Google search”, but not any target websites of found links)
  • http://www.kbb.com/ (with lots of info about cars)
  • http://usnews.rankingsandreviews.com/cars-trucks/rankings/ (with car ranking info)
  • http://www.edmunds.com/ (with nice car review info)
  • http://www.flickr.com/ (a photo stock: don’t sign up, just enter a keyword & search)

The theme of this year’s completion is automobiles and road safety. Imagine that your team is hired to develop an educational website regarding automobiles and road safety. You have the option to focus more on automobiles or road safety or deal with both with equal weights. The emphasis of the competition is on your design (structure and functions). As for the contents of your website, you don’t need to compose them all – you can copy & paste the text and pictures (but not the structures and layout designs) of the above websites you are granted of access. You shall widely use your creativity and imagination to add any elements to your website as long as they are related to cars and road safety. For example, if you are a fan of cars, you may include classified surveys/reviews and ads of cars, etc.; and if you care more about road safety, you can add more elements about safe driving, danger prevention, traffic laws, etc.

In order to accommodate the creativity of different teams, this competition only sets the main theme, i.e., “automobiles and safety”, and does not impose any specific requirements. However, to help you quickly form your initial design, the following hints (not requirements) are provided to you:

  • The main page has with navigation side bars (filled with clickable links). For example, left side bar focuses on automobiles and right side bar focuses on safety issues.

  • Generally, stuffing everything into one page is not good design. Most websites are designed as a hierarchy (of many pages).

  • You shall use entries (form widgets) for users to raise questions (to car experts and dealers for example) or leave comments (to whoever that makes sense) or even post ads or any announcements.

  • Professional websites often instantly check the validity of user input, e.g., phone number 618-4543-2176 would instantly be captured as invalid, and the user would be prompted to reenter. You may integrate this kind of function if you know how to do it.

 

Important notes:

  1. Generally, web technologies can be classified as client-side and server-side technologies (both sides include various languages and tools). Your team is expected to do the client-side development only. But if your team has the knowledge, you may implement some cool functions using server-side support such as PHP, CGI, Ajax. However, the judges will solely look at what you delivered and demonstrated at the client-side.

  2. You can include images (graphics) and video clips on your web page. To do this, you can create any image by using any type of software available to you. You can also include downloaded materials the granted websites into your website. But the key point here is – you have to make everything seamlessly integrated and your designed website must appear as a coherent whole and fits the theme of the completion – cars and safety.

  3. You are required to upload your web pages every hour (preferably every 30 minutes) during the competition. An assistant is available to help you upload the web pages your team developed to our department server when needed. If you don’t upload, the judges won’t be able to see your work.

  4. Your work will be evaluated in real time, based on the following grading criteria:

  • Proper organization/structure of the website

  • Creativity (leading to greater attractiveness to customers or targeted audience)

  • Contents fitting the completion theme

  • User friendliness (including convenient navigation among the topics and pages)

  • Visual design (appealing)

 

Good luck and watch your time!