This post is part 2 of the PennyLane Code Camp series
From November 1st–21st, more than 800 coders from over 70 different countries joined us for the first-ever PennyLane Code Camp! Campers were invited to tackle three weeks of increasingly difficult quantum coding challenges in teams of 1–4 members, competing for prizes and solving the Explorer-, Adventurer- and Pioneer-level challenges. Each week Code Camp teams had the opportunity to earn badges and move up the leaderboard, gaining ultimate bragging rights for their speedy coding abilities.
In total, 234 coders managed to successfully solve all the challenges of the Explorer week, 164 solved the entire Adventurer week, and only 113 of the top quantum coders completed the Pioneer week and earned a PennyLane Code Camp Certificate to attest to their skills.
If you couldn’t join us at PennyLane Code Camp this year, don’t worry, you won’t be missing out for long. QHack, the one-of-a-kind celebration of quantum computing, is back again this coming February!
QHack is a mixture of a fan expo, hackathon and scientific conference. This year will be QHack’s 4th year running, and we are so excited to celebrate all things quantum with you again!
Save the dates — February 13–28th, 2023!
Now… let’s unpack PennyLane Code Camp 2022! 🏕️
Week 1 — Explorer
The event was off with a bang when the Explorer challenges opened at 9 a.m., on Tuesday, November 1st, and we were floored by the speed at which some coders completed the challenges — it took the fastest teams only half an hour to complete all Explorer challenges! 🤯 🏃
The five most successful teams of the Explorer week were AAAM, Sky Barley, quantumspacetime, BillyLjm, and suniverse.
By the end of the first week, almost 150 participants had already solved the entire first batch of challenges and earned themselves the Explorer Badge, getting one-third of the way toward the final PennyLane Code Camp Certificate. Congratulations to everyone who earned an Explorer Badge for completing all of the week 1 challenges!
Week 2 — Adventurer
On November 7th the Adventurer challenge week opened and the difficulty dial on the challenges was turned up a notch 🔥. Where Explorer challenges took top teams only half an hour, Adventurer challenges upped the ante, with the fastest teams taking more than two hours to master them. Congratulations to everyone who earned an Adventurer Badge for completing all of the week 2 challenges!
The five most successful teams by the end of the Adventurer week were AAAM, Sky Barley, BillyLjm, suniverse, and Pizza Kebab.
Week 3 — Pioneer
Week three the Pioneer challenges opened — an additional step above the Explorer challenges in terms of difficulty. Despite the stark increase in the difficulty of the Pioneer week challenges, AAAM stood their ground and completed the entire set of questions in less than four hours. And to upset the betting pools, after missing out during the Explorer and Adventurer weeks, Leander and Incho kept going and earned themselves spots in the top five, pushing out suniverse and Pizza Kebab. Shoutout to the top 5 teams of week 3 and the winners of the PennyLane Code Camp 2022: AAAM, Sky Barley, BillyLjm, Leander, and Incho, who will be receiving PennyLane Code Camp care packages for their efforts:
- AAAM: Three hours of consulting time with the PennyLane team, interviews for the Xanadu Residency Program, the Supervised Learning with Quantum Computers book, swag packs, and an in-person (or virtual) tour of Xanadu
- Sky Barley: Interviews for the Xanadu Residency Program, the Supervised Learning with Quantum Computers book, swag packs, and an in-person (or virtual) tour of Xanadu
- BillyLjm: Swag packs, a towel, and an in-person (or virtual) tour of Xanadu
- Leander: Swag packs and a towel
- Incho: Swag packs
The five most successful teams at the end of the Pioneer week (and the Code Camp altogether) were AAAM, Sky Barley, BillyLjm, Leander, and Incho.
But it’s not all about being the fastest; more than one hundred participants finished the PennyLane Code Camp by earning a Pioneer Badge, as well as the coveted PennyLane Code Camp certificate. Our congratulations go out to each and every one of you!
Beyond badges and certificates, some pretty cool prizes were up for grabs. The top teams on the leaderboard earned not only bragging rights, but also valuable prizes, including consulting time, swag, books, lab tours, and even interviews for Xanadu’s Residency Program.
It’s been a whirlwind three weeks and we can’t thank the PennyLane community enough for making this event one for the books. We look forward to organizing more coding events that will help us all learn, improve our skills, compete and — most importantly — have fun!
Until next time,
About the author
@larawatson
Lara is the Senior Marketing Lead at Xanadu. She is an experienced marketing and administrative professional that you may also find teaching a yoga class occasionally.