The NZOI 2025 Summer Camp has just concluded (January 4th to 12th) in Christchurch.

The students and staff arrived from all over New Zealand on flights from Invercargill to Auckland, with a sizeable majority from Auckland.

There were 30 students invited, with 20 students divided between Algorithms and Experienced (found via the NZIC rounds) and 10 students in the Intro to C++ group (found via PC4G). One student moved into the Algorithms group from the Intro group and one student went home early.

The staff at camp, both lecturing and tutoring, were Nicholas, Joseph, Janindu, Anatol, Zalan, Arshia, Bertil and Thomas who are all NZOI ex-students. Suzanne supervised at the hostel and in the Intro room.

We are grateful again to Prof. Tim Bell and Dr. Richard Lobb, both from CSSE Canterbury University, for lecturing the Algorithms group.

The weather in Christchurch didn’t play ball so the planned excursion to Jellie park for a swim was cancelled and instead the students went in small groups, with a tutor, on the bus into Christchurch to see the sights. Evening activities included an icebreaker game organized by Janindu, a quiz night organized by Joseph, and a Codebreaker contest (many tutors were involved!). Our sponsor Jane Street organised an online Estimathon as a contest, in groups of 6.

The Intro group sat one contest that was suited to their experience. The other students sat two contests during camp (4 hours long each, and involving tutors working long into the night pre-contest!).

These contest results were used to select a group of 9 (“the squad”) who will be invigilated in their home towns to sit the upcoming AIIO and FARIO contests. All results will be used towards the selection of the New Zealand team for IOI 2025 currently scheduled to be held in Sucre, Bolivia.

After the second contest the activity was again a contest, this time to write the best C++ program to play the game “Snake”.

Despite Christchurch weather not being particularly kind, camp was a great success. Students formed new friendships and the many talented pianists were showcased in the downtimes in the hostel!

As this is my last year organising camp, it’s appropriate to recognise not only the amazing hard work and dedication of this year’s staff, but also the scores of previous staff since January 2007, almost wholly ex-students, who give freely of their time and energy over the years to enable New Zealand students to have the amazing opportunity to represent the country in a prestigious international event. My sincere thanks to all of them.

Margot

If you’re a student who didn’t go to camp, but who thinks this sounds fun, then participate in NZIC! It’s a free online competition, run throughout the year, with some problems approachable to newcomers and some hard ones to work towards. NZIC participants will be contacted towards the end of the year about selection for January Camp 2026.