Advent of Carolina Code Ticket Challenge!
Complete coding challenges to win tickets to the 2024 conference!
December 1st is right around the corner and with that comes the annual Advent of Code event. This year, we’re setting up a Private Leaderboard to encourage participation for developers of all experience levels, including numerous ways to win tickets and other prizes in the process.
We’re giving away 22 FREE tickets, t-shirts and early access for 2024!
What is Advent of Code?
Direct from adventofcode.com…
Advent of Code is an Advent calendar of small programming puzzles for a variety of skill sets and skill levels that can be solved in any programming language you like. People use them as interview prep, company training, university coursework, practice problems, a speed contest, or to challenge each other.
As regular participant in Advent of Code for many years now, Eric Burden has even run a blog series annually discussing the event and what he loves about it so much.
“ ...the thing that stands out to me the most is how big an impact AoC has as a community event. Don’t get me wrong, I love a good puzzle, I really enjoy coding puzzles, and I’m happy to set time aside put my head down to work on something fun and interesting all by myself. Thing is, though, there’s something about knowing that other people are working, thinking, struggling, solving, succeeding, failing, and re-starting at the same time as you that’s really invigorating."
- Eric Burden
We hope to see you join the fun this year.
How do I join?
We can’t publish the Private Leaderboard code because there’s a limit to how many people can join, so you’ll need to send us an email to participate.
Here’s how you join, send an email to barry@carolina.codes including…
Subject: Join Advent of Code
Send from the email address you wish tickets to be sent to if you win
Your Advent of Code account name (ie - Signed up with Twitter/X so ours is “@CodesCarolina”)
Your Gitlab/Gitea/Github/etc username and a public repo for your solutions
Additionally, if you don’t already have a 2023 Carolina Code Conference t-shirt, include your t-shirt size in Men’s or Women’s styles. We’re going to raffle off the remaining inventory of shirts among the contest participants who earn at least 1 Gold star.
We will respond with the code to join the Private Leaderboard.
What can I win…and how?
There are a few fixed, definite prizes. We may come up with others.
1st place will earn FOUR free tickets to the 2024 Carolina Code Conference for you and your friends. ($600 value)
2nd place will earn TWO free tickets ($300 value)
3rd place will earn ONE free ticket ($150 value)
Polyglot Raffle
Earn at least two Gold stars with different programming languages and you’ll be entered into a raffle to win ONE free ticket ($150 value). Every Gold star earned with a different language will result in an additional raffle entry.Judges Rulings
We will give away ONE free ticket based on some judged awards, including…Best DevOps Pipeline - Want to setup an awesome CI pipeline to check your code? We care about that too.
Best Tests - Implement some excellent tests on your code and show them off.
Best Code Comments - The next programmer might be you. Treat them well.
Best Kanban Board - Are you the type of developer that sets up multi-phase Kanban boards with clear process guidelines even when you’re the only developer? Awesome…there’s a prize for that.
Best Security Practices - Lock it down. There’s a prize for that.
Weirdest Language - Did you find a really obscure language or combination that nobody else in the competition was using? There’s a prize for that.
Best Single Line of Code - Because reasons.
Social Media Raffles
If you earn at least 10 stars out of the 50 possible, you will be entered into a ticket raffle for every social media platform on that you’ve helped us promote the competition. Even if you don’t win, we’ll upgrade your subscription to this blog to a paid account for 1 year, which will grant you early access to tickets when they become available!
We’re on LinkedIn, Twitter/X, Facebook, Instagram, Mastodon, Threads and YouTube. That’s seven platforms, meaning seven raffles and SEVEN free tickets to be raffled off ($1,050 value total). You can be entered into each raffle but only win one. Just reply to your competition entry request email with some evidence like a link or screenshot so we know to associate it with your entry.
Here’s how you play on each platform. NOTE: Participation before Dec 1st will earn TWO entries in each raffle to help spread the word before the competition begins.LinkedIn - Follow us, then Like, Comment and Repost any of our posts promoting this competition.
Twitter/X - Follow us, then Like, Comment and Repost any of our posts promoting this competition.
Facebook - Follow us, then Like, Comment and Share any of our posts promoting this competition.
Instagram - Follow us, then Like and Comment on any of our posts promoting this competition.
Mastodon - Follow us, then Favorite, Reply and Boost any of our posts promoting this competition.
Threads - Follow us, then Like, Reply and Repost any of our posts promoting this competition.
YouTube - Subscribe to our channel, then give one of your favorite videos Thumbs Up and a comment about what you liked.
While we’re happy to hand out some prizes, the point of this is to have fun and learn…and help us get that sweet, sweet social media traffic.
Use of AI will be considered disqualifying as it undermines the spirit of the event.
Can I use AI to get on the global leaderboard?
Please don't use AI / LLMs (like GPT) to automatically solve a day's puzzles until that day's global leaderboards are full. By "automatically", I mean using AI to do most or all of the puzzle solving, like handing the puzzle text directly to an LLM. The leaderboards are for human competitors; if you want to compare the speed of your AI solver with others, please do so elsewhere. (If you want to use AI to help you solve puzzles, I can't really stop you, but I feel like it's harder to get better at programming if you ask an AI to do the programming for you.)
Have Fun and Learn!
We recently featured Eric Burden on the Carolina Code Cast, who talked extensively about his experience with Advent of Code since 2015.
