We start the interview with a little discussion about the toughest part of the competition. For them, it’s been the logistics of scheduling time amongst themselves, which makes a lot of sense. As far as the individual challenges go, they saw the AWS WRF module as the most difficult. Not because it was hard, but because there were so many options to test and consider. It was pretty wide open, which is sort of the AWS way when it comes to the Winter Classic.
We talk a little cluster competition construction and how making a competition with a level playing field is finding the balance between having challenges that are complete “built it yourself” projects vs. having the mentors provide some of the basics so the kids that aren’t deep in Linux don’t have to do everything from scratch.
Santa Cruz is following their typical pattern. Middling at the start, not bad but not dominant, but then creeping up to get a spot in the top three. With only the judging session left, they’re safely in second place, but about 37 points behind the Red Raiders, which is going to be a tough mountain to climb with only 100 points left on the table.
This is one of those powerhouse all-star teams that come along every once in a while. But what I’m looking forward to is if/when they get that new trophy, they’ve promised to parade it around campus like hocky teams do with the Stanley Cup. That would be the coolest thing ever, right?