Earlier this academic year I had took part in the UK Bebras Challenge and had enjoyed it very much - little did I know a few months later my school would run another amazing competition run by the Raspberry Pi Foundation: The Bebras Coding Challenge!
As opposed to the previous challenge, the Bebras Coding Challenge required students to code/program the solutions to the problems either with blocks, or a text-based language. My school allowed the students to choose what level they wanted to do and therefore I was able to choose the level Pathfinders as I believed it would be a challenge - and it was. To complete those questions under timed conditions meant that I needed to practice speed and efficiency. Through doing several past practice challenges I was able to build this speed and efficiency, being able to make a lot of progress, as questions that took me a long time to do at the start, after practice I could do them in a whizz which enabled me to really get stuck in on the harder problems at the end of the competition.
I am so grateful my school provided me this opportunity because it allowed me to get from knowing how to code something in python to knowing how to do it efficiently, and speedily. This was so much fun and I'm really looking forward to preparing and doing the final level next year!
