The theme of our summer '08 programming contest recognizes that a new season is upon us, and because it is summer, it is warmly welcomed by those of us in the northern hemisphere - and certainly offers things to appreciate for those in the southern hemisphere as well!

This contest, ending Sunday, August 31, is for the best program that uses elements of time in its concept or value.

• Your program must be no more than 1000 lines of code, not including white space
  
• Your program should make some measurement of time - a second, minute, hour, day, week, month, season, year, decade, century, millenium (or any combination thereof!) - its most essential element.  Use of Phrogram's Timers or DateTime libraries is highly encouraged, but anything else that is needed to convey the fundamental nature of time - how it elapses, how it affects our surroundings, how it changes our bodies, our perceptions or our physical surroundings - can also be used.
  
• No person or family member associated with Phrogram may participate
  

Why did we choose time for this contest's theme? Because it's an area that will require entries to show imagination, but also structure and purpose. A good example of a time program that impressed us in the last contest was MoonPhase, by TomDad. I noted in assessing this program "What might be interesting, although it is not immediately obvious how to do it, would be to make this program give the moon phase for a date entered by a user, not the date taken from the computer’s clock." An entry that uses time in this way is an example of the type of program we hope to see submitted in this contest. But it's also worth noting that time can be covered in any type of program, be it a game, a data input / visual output, or anything else.   

A few notes on how we’ll judge your entry:

• Your program can be just about anything this time - a game, digital art, or a learning program - as long as it's about time!
• We will not be judging on how complex or advanced the program is, just how clever and original your use of a concept relating to time is … we are looking for programs that explore how time is measured, how its used, and how it affects us in our "day-to-day" - or "time to time" lives!
• We will be looking closely at whether you “commented the code” to describe how you used concepts of time in your program. This is important for others to be able to learn something new from your program.

Prizes:

• Winner – license code for Phrogram Standard
  
• First runner-up – license code for Phrogram Express
  
• Second runner-up – a free download of our PrecisionMath or PhrogramTalk add-in library (your choice)
  

Plus, all prize recipients will receive the official Phrogram T-shirt, something we plan to make for the first time (there we go again!) this summer.

IMPORTANT: Make sure to upload your program in a way that makes clear it’s a contest entry!

• Post your program as an attachment (use the option tab when you write your post) to the Contest Entries sub-folder in the Collaboration and Community Projects folder (where this message is posted). If your program includes images or sounds, zip all the separate files into a single zip folder. If your program does not use media, you can upload directly in Phrogram’s native format (.kpl).
• In the subject line include: ‘Summer Contest Entry -<name of your program>’ so it will be clearly described as contest entry. Also write a brief description of what your program does in your post.
  

The Judges will be: ZMan, DavidW, and WaltM  

Disclaimer: This contest is not valid in states or countries that do not allow contests of this type (whichever ones they are!). All registered  Phrogram users (Express, Academic or Standard) who are 18 years or older are eligible to participate; if you are younger than 18, you can enter if you have the consent of your parent or guardian.

Have fun, and make sure to get your summer contest entry on the calendar!