If you’re interested in HTML or CSS coding, then the Computational Linguistics Tournament might be right up your alley.  The tournament is an assortment of mind boggling puzzles that tests students’ minds in a variety of ways.  Students will receive a paper with a few paragraphs of writing and will have to solve a puzzle related to the writing.  It can be anything from what type of foreign food is served at a restaurant based on blogs, to what a text says that is written in numbers instead of letters. The questions can be about anything, not just math and computers.

There are five practice sessions before the tournament, which is held at CU Boulder on Jan. 31.  Mrs. Eaton is the adviser and the practice sessions are in room E113 during both A and B lunch. All students are welcome.

The tournament is open to all high school students, whether they attend the practice sessions or not.  “I thought it was really fun because you don’t really need to be good at a certain subject; it was logical, kind of like puzzles,” Fossil Ridge High School freshman Endroni Ray said.

Ray attended the Computational Linguistics tournament two years ago at CU Boulder, even though she had never gone to any practice sessions before-hand (-FRHS has a group of students who practice together, but each student enters as an individual) The competitions are very specific: once each competitor is done with the problems at the tournament they give their answer sheet to the person overseeing the tournament and they mail them in to be graded.  The winners are notified through mail. The competitions aren’t limited to Colorado; there are students in Canada and a few other countries that compete as well.