René Pastoors, a student on the Bachelor’s degree programme in Media and Communication Informatics, came out on top against his fellow students in the first-semester competition in computer science and took first place.
The Faculty of Communication and Environment at Rhine-Waal University of Applied Sciences once again organised an in-house number-calculation competition for first-year students on the Media and Communication Informatics and E-Government degree programmes, as part of the ‘Fundamentals of Computer Science’ module.
This year’s task was to determine the exact value of a number stored in a computer, subject to specified constraints, and to be the first to submit the result. These special numbers, which consist of 16 different digits and therefore extend our usual decimal system by six digits, are of particular importance when calculating digital processes using computers. For example, computers can process camera images and spoken commands using special number systems. This transforms technical devices into useful everyday aids that assist people and do not require complex operation.
To solve the problem, the students had to learn how to process data in number systems that were unfamiliar to them, which proved a challenge for many participants. “A good grasp of mathematics and an enjoyment of programming are the best prerequisites for studying computer science,” explains Professor Dr.-Ing. Ulrich Greveler, who founded the annual competition and teaches the technical fundamentals of computer science, the processing of numerical information and how network and server operating systems work. “Tasks of this kind challenge the students. They have to produce a result within a short space of time, and this result must be exactly correct in order to be technically applicable,” Greveler continued.
The student René Pastoors emerged victorious. “We’d already had computer science lessons at school. That was good preparation for my degree and the competition,” says the winner, Pastoors, happily. Greveler is pleased to hear this, as, in his view, computer science lessons are unfortunately still a marginal phenomenon in schools in North Rhine-Westphalia. “Computer science is often only covered superficially, even though digitalisation has become the number one challenge in professional life,” says Greveler. Rhein-Waal University of Applied Sciences provides a solid grounding in its computer science degree programmes and combines this with practical applications and the latest technologies.
