ChicTech, an outreach program of the University of Illinois’ Department of Computer Science, extends an open invitation for college women to participate in the third annual Games for Girls Programming Competition (G4G).
Registration must be submitted by January 31, 2008, at http://www.cs.uiuc.edu/g4g. Completed projects are due by April 9, 2008.
We invite teams of up to five college women to design and implement a computer game for younger girls. The competition is designed to encourage the development of computer games that appeal to middle- and high-school-aged girls, while fostering the development of communities of college women majoring in computer-related disciplines. Projects will be evaluated by approximately thirty high-school girls attending the annual ChicTech retreat weekend on the U of I campus in April. Their evaluation will be based on their overall enjoyment of the games.
G4G is part of an effort to attract and retain women in Computer Science. The creative process of game-building can help female students develop a stronger sense of belonging to the field of Computer Science and seeing the work of college women can help high school girls relate to the potential of CS as a major. The judging of the G4G games has proven to be one of the highlights of the ChicTech retreat weekend.
This year’s competition is sponsored by State Farm. G4G will award each member of the winning team $1,000, with cash prizes also going to the second- and third-place teams. An additional $1,000 will go to the first-place-winning team’s department to help support programs to attract and retain more women in Computer Science.
Games must be PC-based. Teams may use any development tools they wish, but we encourage them to use the GameMaker platform, which has worked well in previous G4G competitions. Please visit our website for complete competition details.
The competition is open to all college women currently residing in the United States. Each student team must submit an on-line registration by January 31, 2008. Visit the web site to complete an application: http://www.cs.uiuc.edu/g4g.
Sonya Harris is the Outreach Coordinator for Undergraduate Recruitment, Retention, and Outreach at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.
