The American Computer Science League, known as the ASCL and pronounced as “Axel” allows students to learn more about concepts that may not be learned inside of the classroom such as CSP or CSA. Juniors Vanya Gupta and Emily Chen are Executive Board Members of the club this year, they participate in events such as Cyber Patriot, and Psycho Prep which Chen believes is similar to ASCL.

Members are given a seventy-two hour window to complete different assignments, and the ASCL provides people with short-form multiple choice problems that are based on the information provided by materials beforehand, and long form problems that give you more creative liberty around the subject of programming. Gupta prefers the short-form problems, while Chen prefers the long-form problems.

In graph theory, Emily Chen states that you are analyzing the connections between nodes or vertices and the relationships between them, and then categorizing you look at what node connects to two. Chen primarily uses Python, but uses Java from time to time. Gupta uses Python.

“To simulate code in my head without a computer, I almost always have a notebook with me when I’m doing the multiple choices, especially because you have to trace through a lot of the programming. So I, it’s called Dry Run, and you can write down each step that the computer is taking.” Gupta states.

To Gupta, it is important to go line by line, very carefully, and notice what every single line is doing to follow it step by step.

During each of the four events, the ASCL selects a team of ten. The highest five scores are taken from the team and added up. The maximum score for each person is 12 points. The maximum score per team is 60 points. This year, the team has gotten the maximum amount of points possible.

“Yeah, I’d say something that is, like, pretty helpful day to day is, like, different, like, bases and, like, numbers, like base two, like hexodecimal. You kind of see that like a lot, especially with things like color codes and binary and stuff.” Chen says.

As the team is working to recruit more members, if you would like to get involved, you can join the Google Classroom. The code is GUA5JX.

“Bions, lubes, conditionals, all of those are so fundamental. Computer science is definitely, like, such an important part of the world today. It’s such an important skill that a lot of people should have.” Chen adds.