@Charlieton: Thanks!

I guess I forgot to explain the premise of it. In short, it was testing the output assembly language from the SDCC C compiler, targeting the zilog z80 (as a representative of other 70s 8 bit processors still widely used today), and testing certain handwritten optimizations (that can be implemented with a strict rule set) to see which ones were most effective, and which ones were most able to be implemented into compilers targeting the z80 (and similar processors.)
Overall I got 1st place in computer science, along with another student, so it looks like I'll be going to states! I also got a 1st place corporate award (and money) from MIT, George Mason, the Central Intelligence Agency, the Air Force, in addition to a few honorable mentions and a grand prize from IEEE. Ten times better than I expected, I was just hoping to place!

@Seiseki: Thanks! Not sure game design will eventually turn into my profession (I'm aiming more towards a CS and an EE/CE double major), and my pixeling/art skills are still rather lacking, but it's definitely a forming hobby of mine

Just gotta get back to drawing and/or find some good artists to work with.