The Australian Computational and Linguistics Olympiad (OZCLO) is a contest for high school students. It challenges them to develop their own strategies for solving problems in fascinating real languages. The program is designed for students up to 12th grade. High school students don't typically know what linguistics and computational linguistics are, so they probably don't know if they are interested in it until they try the problems. However, students who like languages, maths, computers, and natural sciences are most likely to be interested in this competition.
Any secondary school student who enjoys the sample problems on the web site is a potential contestant.
The First OZCLO was held last year in Melbourne and Sydney. The three winning teams from the State Rounds in both states competed to solve problems in Icelandic agreement, Finite State Automata, Mayan hieroglyphs, Manam Pile directionals, and spectrograms of English in the National Round in August. Competitors ranged from year 9 to year 12, and came from both state and private schools. The competition was a huge success and a lot of fun for all involved.
In 2009, OZCLO was held at Australian National University in Canberra, Griffith University in Queensland, University of South Australia in Adelaide, University of Melbourne in Melbourne, University of Sydney in Sydney, University of Western Australia in Perth, and we sent an Australian team to the finals of the International Linguistics Olympiad (ILO) in Wroclaw, Poland from 26th to 31st July.
Training Sessions
Training sessions for students will be held at each location. We will explain the details of the competition, the fields of linguistics, computational linguistics, and language technologies, provide sample problems, and give tips for solving them. If you would like to find out more about training sessions in each state, please email the local organisers.
Competition Format
The State round is a two hour competition during which the students work in teams (of two or three) on a range of analytical problems. The top three teams of the State round will go on to the National Round. We are hoping to send an Australian team to the finals of the International Linguistics Olympiad in Wroclaw, Poland in July 2009. Although this is a team competition format, individual students are also encouraged to register. They will be teamed with other individual competitors, so will not be disadvantaged. Students at all year levels will complete the same tasks, with achievements recognised in a junior level competition (years 9-10), and a senior level competition (year 11-12).
Registration
Registration is free. If you would like to register an expression of interest, please email the local organisers. Registration will be managed through a teacher contact, so students will not be contacted individually.
Other Competitions
North American Computational Linguistics Olympiad
AILO All Ireland Linguistics Olympiad
International Competitions