글로벌 소프트웨어사고력 콘테스트 어떤 문제가 출제되나?

강병곤 G-SWTC 출제·평가 위원은 “학생들의 창의력에 따라 여러 종류의 답이 나올 수 있는 문제로 출제한다”고 말했습니다. 여러 방법과 단계를 거쳐 답을 도출 할 수 있는데, 이 중 심층적으로 분석한 답변이 높은 점수를 받습니다.

강 위원은 “샘플 문제를 활용해 창의적 문제해결 기법을 연습하라”고 충고합니다. 수평적 사고 퍼즐이나 매일 겪는 일상적 사건에 대한 해결 방법을 생각하는 것도 좋은 연습입니다. 학생들의 아이디어를 최대한 끌어 낼 수 있도록 어려운 영어 단어나 문장은 지양하고, 모호한 문장보다 가능한 단순한 문장으로 답을 하면 보다 좋은 점수를 얻을 수 있습니다. 아래는 G-SWTC 샘플 문제입니다. 답변은 영어로 해야 합니다.  

<초등학생>
   1) Suppose a person from another planetis visiting Earth and has only three fingers on each hand (and no thumb).Describe how their technology might be different because of having 6fingers.

2) You are tasked to design a set of controlmechanisms for a group of drones (small flying robots) In this group,there is only one leader drone that can command other drones. Thenon-leader drones respond to and take orders from the leader only. Supposeyou need to arrange the drones in mid-air in as many possibleconfigurations as possible.  Suggest a set of commands and messagesthat will achieve this goal.

3) A. Describethe step-by-step procedure of how a human would write a poem.
   B. How would these steps change if a computer was to write a poem?

<중학생>
   1) A car company is building a self-driving car that can drive itself without any human help. Describe the types of data and information the car will need to be able to drive and how the company can collect this data.

2) Your school is starting a new system to try and stop food waste at the cafeteria: the cafeteria will show the menu at the beginning of each day, and each student says what food they will want and how much they will want. The cafeteria then decides how much food to make based on what the students said. After each meal, the cafeteria measures how much of each kind of food was actually eaten, and the cafeteria workers notice something: the students do not always eat what they said they would, and there is still food waste and not enough of some foods. Describe a strategy to improve the cafeteria's system over time so that there is enough of each food for everyone but as little food waste as possible.

3) The Korean writing system is based on blocks. A single block consists of three characters from the Korean alphabet set. The first and last characters are consonants, where the latter may be omitted, and the second character is a vowel. Design a way to encrypt these blocks that will convert any block into an integer, and vice versa.

<고등학생>
  1) You want to create the next great search engine! Google's first search used an algorithm called "PageRank". PageRank worked by sorting or ranking webpages in a specific order depending on the number of other sites that linked to that webpage, and the quality of those links. If a higher ranked webpage linked to the webpage, that was considered a higher quality link, and the webpage moved up in the ranking. People who used Google to search would then see the highest ranked pages first.
Your job is to design a totally new search strategy, including how you will sort through webpages and which ones you will decide to show to people when they search. You may focus your answer on a specific domain if you want to, like searching for good movies or nearby restaurants.

2) Suppose someone is paralyzed and can hear you but only respond by blinking their eyes. Design a system for that person to quickly and efficiently communicate with another person.

3)  Virtual health coach: A human health coach normally performs following functions:
•    Conducting initial consultations and evaluations of patients.
•    Providing guidelines to reduce or eliminate unhealthy behaviors.
•    Development of health care plans tailored for each client's needs.
•    Working with other health care stakeholders such as doctors and pharmacists.
•    Monitoring patients and supporting patients in their recovery or rehabilitation.
Given the increase in an elderly population and decrease in the younger population, there will be lesser availability of human health coaches for taking care of elderly persons. Scientists are working on a computer-based virtual coach avatar that has a potential to replace human health coaches. Describe using your intuition and creativity, how a computer-based virtual coach avatar can help elderly patients to take better care of their health.