StreamBase's Da Vinci Coder Contest

Looking for an interesting way to learn more about event stream processing?  Could you use a laugh after a long day of trying to get something done between meetings and email?  Then, you should check out StreamBase's Da Vinci Coder Contest, and the related short film, a parody on the Da Vinci Code.

The first part of the contest is a series of weekly "Jousts".  To complete each joust, you need to discover secrets within StreamBase developer edition, the video, or "other" (easy to find) resources.  This week is joust #2.  Each weekly joust awards a prize ($1,000 range).  If you're so inclined, you can choose a charitable donation.

The second part of the contest, starting August 14, is the "Grand Tournament".  This is a StreamBase application coding contest to win the coveted (?) title of "Da Vinci Coder" and a bigger prize ($10,000 range).

StreamBase, if you don't know, is Mike Stonebraker's latest company.  No surprise, StreamBase takes a database approach to the event/information stream processing problem.  StreamBase uses an SQL derivative (StreamSQL) to perform in-stream complex event processing.  The StreamBase product is based on Mike Stonebraker's Aurora project.

I had a chance to meet with the StreamBase team earlier this year, and was definitely impressed.  This paper does a good job explaining the requirements for an event stream processing engine.