NACLO @ UH Hilo

What is NACLO?

NACLO (North American Computational Linguistics Open Competition) is a national competition for high school students where you solve puzzles about languages! The highest scoring competitors will be selected to represent the USA in the International Linguistics Olympiad. No prior knowledge of linguistics or a second language is necessary!

What is computational linguistics

Computational linguistics is the science of understanding human languages using logic, computer algorithms, and math. From web searching to translation to social media, computational linguistics is in many of the applications that you use in your daily lives.

Competition Info

The Open Round of NACLO will be held synchronously across the country. The UH Hilo competition site is in College Hall 5, on January 25, 2024 from 7-10 AM.

If you are a middle or high school student interested in competing, please do the following:

Register on the official NACLO website and select UH Hilo as the testing site. Registration is free for all students.
Send an email to UH Hilo's NACLO coordinator Winston Wu (wswu@hawaii.edu) saying you will be competing.

Please arrive 15 minutes before the competition starts. You can park in the College Hall parking lot on W. Lanikaula St.

The competition will be held in paper format. We will provide you with pens and scratch paper. You may bring a snack if you like.

Preparing for the Competition

Remember, you don't need to know linguistics or another language to solve the problems. All the problems can be solved with a little logical thinking, but some problems may be very difficult! You can try out some of the previous years' practice problems. Also, please read through the student handbook for details about the competition.

We look forward to seeing you on the competition day! If you have any questions in the meantime, please contact Winston Wu (wswu@hawaii.edu)