Hey everyone.

On Friday November 20, 2009 ACM will be traveling to a local 4th grade class to teach them about what Computer Science is.

We will be meeting at UM-D at 9:30, probably around the ACM office, and be leaving for the school at 11:30. We will be back at UM-D approximately 2 hours later.

If you are interested in participating in this shoot Luke Duncan an email at L@lukejduncan.com.

Thanks!

Brad

Hey everyone.

Two teams participated in the ACM Programming Competition on Saturday October 31, 2009. Our team Bits Don’t Byte solved two problems and placed 6th at the site and won backpacks with ACM logos on them.

Our team Water Who had the best team name and also solved two problems.

The teams placed 31st and 43rd in our region out of 113 teams.

Check out pictures from the site here!

Brad

It’s that time of year again. The leaves are changing colors, the temperature is getting cooler, and the Regional Programming Contest (RPC) is about to begin.

The RPC is the first round of team-based programming contests for the ACM International Collegiate Programming Contest (ACM-ICPC). This year, our RPC will happen on October 31 at the University of Michigan Ann Arbor campus. Each year we send two teams of three people to compete for a chance at glory* - and that’s where you come in!

We are holding programming practices every Friday at noon in CIS 139. Each week we pick a different programming problem and attempt to solve it. Usually by the time we have a basic algorithm figured out our minds start to get a little fuzzy, so we refocus them with the help of some FREE PIZZA.

If YOU want to see about joining a team, test your wits, or just hang out and eat pizza, stop by Friday at noon in CIS 139!

*To get an idea of how our teams have done in the past, visit our RPC results page.

Tonight ACM members competed in our second Top Coder competition.  With the busy part of the semester beginning we again had two members, Luke Duncan and Dennis Matveyev. Two members wished us well at before the competition but were unable to compete, Tony Wesley and Kasey Thompson.  Thanks for the support guys. 

Below, Denis discusses his first experience at a Top Coder competition. 

“So .. wow ! 

I have a multitude of feelings about this contest (TopCoder), and I’ve only started competing 2 hours ago !

First, some background — I’ve been involved with ACM regional contests since 2004! Now, I see that all the time I’ve spend practicing for ACM is trumped by doing TopCoder contests! For ACM I used to solve problems from previous ACM’s contests, but TopCoder times you and lets you really butt heads with your peers and lets you do so better than ACM contest — at TopCoder you can see other contestants’ code!! (after the contest is over, of course!) 

I feel that had I practiced with TopCoder, besides getting better on TopCoder, I’d do better on ACM and other contests in general! 

Seeing other contestant’s code is AWESOME !! This was always a mystery for me at ACM contests. I managed to peek at Waterloo’s code at an ACM contest and it was the top of the tops for me. TopCoder makes looking at other contestant’s code routine.

So, my impressions of the contest at TC (TopCoder) as coming from ACM regionals background:
* First, I was afraid, very afraid to compete. Ok, I was not afraid, I was hesitant. Luke, thanks for pulling me out and having me compete. Here’s a task for you: kidnap people and have them compete at TopCoder as their way to get back home. I was hesitant because I did not want to break my ACM regional mode, but I am happy it’s broken now!
* Being used to ACM contests, I did not know how to submit problems for TC contest. Turns out you need to write a class and use exact methods provided to you. Also, there should be no main() function when you submit. This is just a contest set up slightly differently than ACM. ”

Our first official ACM TopCoder competition was a relative success.  Today’s competition drew two ACM members: myself and Tony Wesley.  Unfortunately, Tony wasn’t able to register for the competition in time and didn’t officially compete but still worked the problems. We’ll continue to meet for future Single Round Matches and hope to grow the group.  We’re looking to create an informal environment for members to compete, show-off, hone, refine, or even discover their programming skills.  If that sounds like something you’re interested in email Luke at ljduncan@umd.umich.edu.  The next competition will be on Saturday, February 7th, at noon.  A full schedule of competitions can be found here.

Tony worked and compiled the 250 point problem.  Since he didn’t officially compete he wasn’t ranked.

Luke submitted the 250 point problem, compiled the second problem, and successfully challenged 1 problem.  Unfortunately Luke’s first problem didn’t pass the system testing.  Luke finished 15th out of 20 in his division 1 competition room.

The big lesson learned today was to read the problem statement carefully.  The 250-point problem was easy, if you read it correctly.  The problem is as follows:

Once upon a time, there was a kingdom where math was always a big problem. When the post of the royal treasurer needed to be filled, applicants were presented with the following problem:  “We have two arrays of integers, A and B. A and B each contain exactly N elements. Let’s define a function S over A and B:

S = A0*B0 + … + AN-1*BN-1

Rearrange the numbers in A in such a way that the value of S is as small as possible. You are not allowed to rearrange the numbers in B.”  The problem writers need a program to check the correctness of the applicants’ answers. Given vector <int>s A and B, return the smallest possible value for S.

Note the statement: “You are not allowed to rearrange the numbers in B.”  This DOES NOT mean that the algorithm cannot rearrange the numbers in B.  It simply means that the citizens whom the law applies to cannot.  Understanding that is the difference between spending 20 minutes and spending 2 minutes on the problem.

Once the official Problem Set & Analysis is uploaded to TopCoder a link will be added to the post.