| USAICO Diary | ||
June 1 (Thu) Arrival DayDear USAICO parent, sponsor, reporter or fan: We picked up the contestants during the day and had them gather in front of Domino's Pizza on the 6th floor of the baggage claim area of the Denver airport. They played cards and chess while they waited for the last arrivals to get their luggage. Everyone was set and ready to board the Colorado College bus at 4:30. We have 12 contestants from the United States, 4 from Canada, 2 from Romania, and 1 from Russia, Bulgaria, Poland, and China. This is 22 in all along with 8 coaches. Upon arrival in Colorado College at 6:15, we quickly picked up our room keys and went off to dinner in the cafeteria. We had a choice between stir fry with vegetables, beef, and rice, or pasta, or hamburgers -- or all three if you are really hungry. We sat around large round tables which encouraged everyone to get to know each other. We walked over to our new computer lab in the Russell Tutt Science Center and head coach Rob Kolstad lead the group in introductions. Sitting (very comfortably of course) in front of a computer, the contestants tackled the “opening night” programming challenge. The cow prize went to Joe Zimmerman. The finalists all have free phone cards. So if they don’t call home, well, we tried. The coaches have prepared all the problems and test cases for the entire competition so they should enjoy the week too. The weather is perfect -- in the 70's and low 80's. The sky is clear and you can see Pikes Peak very clearly. We are off to another good start. I'll keep you posted. Here are some first day photos. |
June 2 (Friday) Contest 1Today the first of six competitions began. It was a three hour competition. Lucky for us, we have an automated grading system, developed by Rob, Russ and Hal, which is resting safely on his server at his home in Colorado Springs. When a contestant submits his program for grading, it goes flying over the Internet, is compiled, run, graded essentially instantly, and the results come back to the competitor's computer. This takes a second or two. The hard part of programming competitions is making up problems, solving them, and creating the test data to test the solutions. That is what our staff spent many long hours doing before coming to camp. Today was "picture day" and we took the group photo and individual photos. After lunch, the competitors went back to see their results and review the solutions. For a little break in the afternoon, the students played ultimate Frisbee. After dinner, coaches gave a contest strategy lecture. What to do and what not to do during a competition. The evening ended with the introduction the the game challenge -- Battleship. This is a team event where programs will eventually play each other to see which team has built the best Battleship playing program. The weather was 83 degrees today -- warm and sunny. Lots of photos today. June 3 (Sat) Speed Round & College Night It’s Saturday, but it doesn’t feel like it for the campers and the staff. Around campus, people have left for the weekend and everything is quiet except for 22 clicking keyboards in the computer lab. They’re enjoying a new competition called Speed Round. Normally computing competitions are as interesting to an observer as watching paint dry. The Speed Round was designed to add some excitement and it was very successful. From a list of ten problems, one was selected and everyone tried to solve it as fast as possible. The ten fastest solutions scored points from 15 to 1. If your program was submitted but did not work the first time, then there was a time penalty. The total time for working on a problem was usually 15 minutes or until at least 10 competitors had it right. All the contestants could see those who had solved the problem so far, their ranking and points, and the cumulative points for all competitors listed in rank order. The top three finishers in the speed round were: 1. Zeyuan Zhu (China), 2. Mircea Pasoi ( Romania) 3. Matt McCutchen (USA) Just before lunch, Tim DeBoer, from IBM, introduced his Code Rally game to the contestants. In this game, teams of two or three program the behavior of a car which races around a track going by flags, smashing into things, picking up points and gas along the way. The cars compete in a round-robin tournament to determine the "hot car," the one with the best strategy. I took a few photos of the contestants watching the final round and you will see on their faces what they thought of Code Rally. Brenda Chow, from IBM, who administers the highly successful college level ACM programming competition, invited the group to participate in: Programming Contest Central -- a portal for high school students interested in programming competitions. http://www-304.ibm.com/jct09002c/university/students/highschool/ Brenda also handed out backpacks to all and told us more was in the mail and would arrive Monday. That would be stuff to put in the backpacks and prizes for the top Code Rally team. The winners were: 1. Richard_the_RED (
Richard Peng, Peng Shi, Qiyu Zhu ) CANADA College night is when we take time to sit around in a big circle and brain storm on what is important to look for and get out of college. Brian Dean, and Russ Cox, two veteran USACO staff members, and Troy Vasiga from Canada, lead the discussion. One piece of valuable advice: Don't just isolate yourself in CS. Broaden yourself and learn about things like Biology, Physics, Music, Languages, even the Humanities. It's the last time you will have this luxury to freely pursue things for their own sake and it could lead to some very interesting applications that combine CS and "you name it." For example, look what has developed from the marriage of Biology and CS -- Bioinformatics. During the day, Rob drove Brenda and I up to see his spread, named Delos, in the foothills outside Colorado Springs. We watched him cut the grass. Life's little chores still need to be done. If he had a couple cows, this job wouldn't be necessary. His neighbor has a pair that welcome drivers on Roller Coaster road -- but they don't eat. You'll see what I mean in the pictures. After the college night round table, it was getting pretty late and time to hit the sack. Tomorrow was the first five hour competition -- Challenge Round 1. June 4 (Sun) Challenge Round IToday is the first five hour competition known as Challenge Round 1. It is very similar to the five hour competitions held at the IOI where they are given three problems to solve. It may seem like a long time to sit in front of a computer-- but for the contestants, it goes by almost instantly. Within two minutes from the end of the contest, the results are printed out and handed back to the competitors to rejoice or weep. That's a marvelous thing that now everyone takes for granted. It took Russ and Rob many years of hard work to get the grading system to this level. After the contestants were given an analysis of the problems by the coaches, they all boarded a bus for an outing. In Wisconsin, we play disc golf on campus. Here in Colorado Springs it's mini- golf. For many of the competitors this was the first time they had ever played. Fortunately, it doesn't matter. This game is not a controllable athletic event. You can get a hole in one and follow that with a hole in 10. And many did. So, no pressure here just clean fun. Well almost. Troy and Rob played for big money. I believe 50 cents changed hands. After dinner it was off to the movies at the nearby Tinseltown movie house. The gang slit up into five groups, each picking a different movie: Poseidon, X-Men, Mission Impossible III, The Da Vinci Code, and Over the Hedge. Afterwards we met at a nearby parlor for ice cream. Tomorrow is Monday, and everyone can skip breakfast and sleep in until 11, if they like. In case you were interested in the scores for the first two contests -- click here. June 5 (Mon) Contest 4After a long day yesterday, the guys could sleep in and skip breakfast. Over half did. At 11 the coaches explained the secrets of making a good contest problem. The contestants split up into teams and tried their hand at creating one. Not so easy is it? And then you have to come up with all those good test cases. Our coaches have to go one step further and "cowify" the problem. That means cleverly transform problems with points, lines and planes into cows, paths, and pastures. It's an art the takes many years of experience and lots for aged Wisconsin cheddar cheese. After lunch the third contest (a three hour event) began. Around 4 pm we received two visitors from the local Colorado Springs Gazette. They interviewed the coaches and the contestants, took a few pictures, and went back to write their story for the morning paper. We'll see tomorrow what they came up with. Hopefully, our USAICO won't get "lost in translation." At dinner tonight, Rob arranged for a surprise birthday cake for Peiyu Wang from Virginia who turned 17 today. The group gathered around to sing Happy Birthday and share his chocolate cake covered with a white sugar frosting. This was a special treat for all. After dinner, the boys went back to the computer lab to work on and work out the bugs on their Battleship program. Two programs lob bombs at each other and try to find and sink the other program's ships. The action is projected on an overhead projector and the group sits around and watches one navy sink another. Only one program will be declared the winner -- during the final round later in the week. The evening ended with a lecture from Brian or "Dr. Dean" as he is known at Clemson University, where he just finished his first year as an assistant professor in CS. http://www.cs.clemson.edu/~bcdean/ Brian is an expert on approximation algorithms and shared his passion with the group. He is also a former Silver Medalist (IOI 1994) where he had his picture taken with Queen Charlotte of Sweden. http://oldweb.uwp.edu/academic/mathematics/usaco/1994/usaco94.htm June 6 (Tue Contest 5) Pool Day Today I rushed off early to get the morning paper to see what the Colorado Springs Gazette would print about us. I found the following story on the Metro page along with a picture which appears in Photos 6. Not bad, just a little short.
Today the students had their 5th contest -- a three hour event. This was followed by a favorite of Rob's -- a game of keep-away in the pool. He puts the boys in the pool, divides them in half ( the good guys and the bad guys ), throws in soft ball that floats and say's, "keep it away from the other side." Then the mayhem begins. Gentle young men, even programmers, can become pretty aggressive. You'll see in the photos. The evening began with further tuning of their Battleship programs. Things are heating up as the programs get even smarter at sinking the opponents fleet. The day ended with a Business Simulation game, conducted by Russ. It was just for fun and won by Kevin Modzelewski. He got his stuffed cow. Tomorrow is the final competition of USAICO. June 7 (Wed) Challenge Round 2 and Awards This was the final day of competition with a five hour event. After it was over, the final round in the battleship game was played out and the Navy of Zeb, John and Kevin sunk all others. Everyone walked to a local pizza parlor for dinner and awards night. The USAICO awards were announced by Rob. GOLD SILVER BRONZE The USA Team to IOI 2006 was announced by
staff members. Other awards were handed out for performances during the year on the USA Internet competitions: November, February, March, and US Open winner --- Matt McCutchen December winner -- Richard Ho January winner -- John Pardon US Open co -winner -- Kevin Modzelewski National Champion -- Matt McCutchen World Champion -- Zeyuan Zhu -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Next stop, Cold Stone for ice cream. The competitors walked back to the dorm and sat around with the coaches for a feedback session on the week's activities. June 8 (Water World) We are very appreciative of our wonderful sponsors. USENIX has been a loyal sponsor since the very beginning of the USACO. SANS, ACM, and IBM joined us a couple year ago. Equinix just became a sponsor. It really helps to send our sponsors an email of appreciation.
USENIX (http://www.usenix.org)
SANS (http://www.sans.org/)
ACM (http://www.acm.org/
IBM (http://www.ibm.com/us/
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