RADFORD - Radford University's College of Science and Technology's information technology department invites community college and high school students to compete in an IT Game Programming Competition on Friday, March 28, at 7:00 p.m. Judges will begin viewing the games and ranking the teams. On Saturday, March 29, the top five competitors will be asked to demonstrate their game to everyone. The judges will then make final decisions and announce the winners.

The purpose of this competition is to promote software development skills among community college and high school students in the Commonwealth of Virginia. The program is also useful in fostering stronger relationships between the information technology programs in the Virginia school systems and Radford University.

The competition is open to any students who are currently attending community colleges or high schools within the Commonwealth of Virginia.

The theme of this year's competition is to create and write any game program. Competitors are allowed to use a variety of computer languages including C, C++, C#, VB, Java and Ada. The operating systems for these languages must be Windows XP or Macintosh.

Judging criteria will include interface design, documentation, playability, graphics, level of difficulty, logic, originality, audio, presentation/demonstration and professionalism.

Prizes include $1,000 scholarships for each member of a first place team and $500 scholarships for each member of a second place team. Additional prizes will also be awarded.

Each school may register up to two teams for the contest. Each team will be made up of two to three students. Interested schools should fill out the registration online form at www.radford.edu/~cst and it must be received by March 7 and CD submissions are due no later than March 21. For more information, please contact contest director Maung Htay at mhtay@radford.edu with the subject line of "Game Programming Competition 2008" or 540-831-5993.