Before you start
Rules, judging and the questions we always get
Read this once and you’ll know exactly what the day looks like and how your pookalam gets scored.
The rules
Short list, strictly applied. Breaking one of these means your entry doesn’t get judged.
Individual participation only — one entry per registered participant.
Your pookalam must be generated entirely by code using the Joy Python library. No pasted SVG, no external image files.
Everything is written during the competition window on the on-site playground. Bringing pre-written or pre-generated code is disqualification.
Internet access is allowed for documentation and reference. Copying another participant’s submission is not.
Submit by saving your sketch as Public before time is called. Unsaved work is not evaluated.
AI tools are allowed. Use the Pookalam brief in the playground to get usable code, then edit it — judges read your source, and an entry you shaped scores higher than one you pasted.
The judges’ decision on creativity, symmetry and code quality is final.
How it’s scored
Four criteria, weighted. Judges see your rendered pookalam and your source.
Visual design
40%Symmetry, colour harmony, how convincingly it reads as a pookalam.
Code craft
30%Use of transforms, cycles and repetition rather than brute-force coordinates.
Originality
20%A pattern we haven’t seen five times already.
Complexity
10%Ambition of the composition relative to the time given.
Questions
Still stuck? Mail us — we answer fast.
Do I need to know Python?
Basic Python helps, but Joy is deliberately tiny — circles, rectangles, lines, and a handful of transforms. Most participants pick it up in the walkthrough session. If you can write a for loop you can draw a pookalam.
What is Joy?
Joy is a small creative-coding library for Python. You build shapes, combine them with +, and repeat or rotate them with transforms like repeat() and rotate(). It renders straight to SVG — which is exactly what the playground shows you live.
Do I need to install anything?
No. The entire competition runs in the browser playground on this site. Log in, write code, hit Run, see your pookalam.
Can I use ChatGPT or another AI tool?
Yes, during the competition window. The playground gives you a ready-made brief to paste into whichever tool you use — it teaches the model the Joy API so you get code that actually compiles. What you cannot do is arrive with code already written or generated. The brief deliberately doesn’t suggest a design, so the idea has to be yours, and the judges read your source: an entry you understood and adjusted scores better than one you pasted.
Can I participate as a team?
This edition is individual-only, so every entry is one person’s work.
What if registration is full?
You go on the waiting list automatically. Drop-outs happen every year, and we contact waiting-list participants in order as seats open up.
Which departments can join?
Open to all departments and all years. You do not need to be a CSE student.
How do I get my certificate?
Everyone who submits a saved public sketch during the competition window gets a participation certificate. Winners get theirs at the announcement.
That’s everything. Ready?
Saturday, 22 August 2026 · CCE Irinjalakuda