USACO  Diary

May 28 Arrival Day

USACO 2008 began on a sunny spring day in Wisconsin. All of the campers arrived on time and were transported, in three vans, to Range Hall at the University of Wisconsin-Parkside. Even Linda (my wife) pitched in and transported bags from the airport to the dorm and picked up the deli sandwiches for lunch. Now she is free of me for eight days. WOW how good is that!

The campers are each sharing a room with a bathroom down the hall. Nothing fancy here. The coaches have a private room. We have 5 coaches and 15 competitors.

Once they had all checked into their rooms and had their deli sandwich, off they went to play Frisbee -- the universal way boys like to socialize. Next it was off to "Welcome & Orientation" in the lecture hall. Rob has a talent for having fun with any interesting detail he can gleam from a camper. As you will see by the look of their faces, everyone got his share of grilling and took it in good fun. This is one of the things that makes the USACO experience unique among academic camps. We know how to have fun. Rob requires it.

I took everyone on a brief tour of the important rooms on campus winding up in the computer lab -- the second most important room after the dinning room. The coaches challenged the campers to write a program with a high precision algorithm for computing the square root of an integer to as many decimal places as they could fit into .5 seconds. The rest of the evening was spent on this task.

By 9:30 the first day was officially over. Jacob appeared happy so I guess we are going OK.

Here are a few pictures from the first day. Click on the following link and then click on slideshow for the best pictures.

http://picasaweb.google.com/dpiele/USACODay1

May 29

Today, at 9 am sharp, the 15 finalist sat down in front of their LCD's, limbered up their fingers, while Rod gave the command -- "Gentleman, start your PCs."
Their fingers roared around the keyboard for thee hours until the contest came to a screeching halt. Then the results were instantly printed out and handed back.

After lunch the best solutions were presented by the coaches -- Brian, John, and Percy. Easy for them and three competitors who had perfect scores.

Then it was off to a new challenge for all competitors-- a round of disc golf. A special perk of having the USAICO at UW-Parkside, is our beautiful 18 hole disc golf course on campus. After a short demo, off they went around campus chasing a disc ( a small Frisbee). Next time we'll play for a fabulous prize. If you have never heard of disc golf, Google it.

Coaches Alex and John were on for the after dinner talk --Winning Contest Strategies. They gave the finalists the benefit of their many years of success at IOI with tips on how to maximize their score and come home with a medal.

And it that wasn't enough, Rob introduced the TRON game. The competitors divided up into teams and began work on their program to win in a head to head encounter. There will be a playoff later in the week.

Here are a few pictures best viewed as a slideshow.


http://picasaweb.google.com/dpiele/USACODay2

May 30

This will be a short report. It is 12 pm -- the end of another 18 hour day. Got to get some sleep.

Today was IBM day at USACO. Tim DeBoer challenged the boys to write a winning algorithm for his game Code Ruler. It is a beautifully designed graphics game for which our finalists broke up into teams and competed in a series of face offs for the right to claim -- Code Ruler.

Brenda Chow did some brain storming with our staff about how best to turn around the declining trend in Computer Science graduates. Rob has studied this problem long and hard and offered his suggestions. Brian, John, Percy, and Alex gave their perspective.

Tim and Brenda handed out prizes to the top two teams in Code Ruler and swag for everyone.

The day entered with Career Night -- a discussion with the finalists on how to find their way through the major/career maze -- not a simple task that can be easily programmed.

Here are a few pictures --- best viewed by clicking on slideshow.

http://picasaweb.google.com/dpiele/USACODay3

May 31
 
Today was picture day. For the occasion, the guys put on the official USACO polo shirt with the 2008 Egyptian cow logo stitched by Rob on this home machine.
A beautiful shirt indeed. We got a big smile from everyone -- well almost.

Here are the picutures -- best viewed as a slide show.

http://picasaweb.google.com/dpiele/USACOFinalistsAndStaff
 
Next the competitors tackled the first 5 hour challenge round which will play a major part in selecting the USA IOI team at the end of camp. Halfway into this round, we stopped for lunch and a surprise birthday salute to Artur Dmowski who just turned 19. A cow cake was given to Artur while the group sang Happy Birthday in Polish. You will note the fine voices we have this year in the video of this event.
 
To relax after a hard day of coding, we took off for Congo Adventure Mini Golf, a lush oasis in Kenosha, for 18 holes of golf. The holes can be tricky, but everyone can play and did.
 
After a quick dinner at Culver's, it was off to the Marcus Theater for Iron Man (15) and Raiders of the Lost Ark (5). Unfortunately, our fun was shortly interrupted by a fire alarm that forced a complete evacuation of the theater. While fire trucks with blinking lights responded, we calmly walked over to the Marble Slab for a bit of ice cream. No visible damage to the theater so we will return tomorrow to see the rest of the movie. So ended another busy 18 hour day at the USACO. 
 
Here are some shots best viewed as a slideshow.
 
http://picasaweb.google.com/dpiele/USACODay4ArturSBirthday
 

June 1

Sunday anyone could sleep in and miss breakfast if they wished. Brian took two campers to a local Catholic service and two to a Protestant service. At 10:30 Percy gave a talk on his special interest -- Machine Learning.

After lunch we divided the group into teams of two by pairing a more experienced programmer with a younger, less experienced one. The younger one was required to do all the typing while the older one added his advice on how to attack the problem. This was a new idea and it worked well.

In the evening, we returned to the Marcus Theater in Racine to pick up where we left off (after the fire alarm) the night before. All went well and Iron Man received two thumbs up.

June 2
Again we separated the finalists into Holsteins and the Guernseys for the morning classes and competition. In the afternoon, Rob, John, and Alex engaged the boys in a sporting round of keep away in the pool -- better known as legalized dunking. The rule was no more that three guys can dunk Micheal at one time. He survived.

Tonight was our final dinner at UW-Parkside, so we splurged on filet mignon. Then is was off to a lecture by Brian Dean on Bioinformatics -- one of his research areas.

I expect the rest of the night will be spent working on the game contest. I'm heading home for a little rest.

Here are some of the pictures best viewed as a slide show.

http://picasaweb.google.com/dpiele/USACODay56

-June 3

Today we finished the final five-hour competition and picked our USA Team to IOI. At our awards dinner at the Chancery in Racine, we handed out medals, certificates, trophies, and special awards. Here are the results:

November '07 Champion -- Jacob Steinhardt
December '07 Champion -- Neal Wu
January    ' 08 Champion -- Kevin Lee
February   '08 Champion -- David Benjamin
March       '08 Champion -- David Benjamin
March Internation Champ -- Goran Zuzic
US Open   '08 Champion -- Spencer Liang
National Co-Champion '08-- David Benjamin
National Co-Champion '08-- Neal Wu

USAICO Bronze -- David Benjamin
USAICO Silver   --  Neal Wu
USAICO Golf     --  Goran Zuzic

USA Team to IOI 2008
David Benjamin
Neal Wu
Jacob Steinhardt
Brian Hamrick


 You can see all the presentations by clicking
on the following link and viewing the slideshow.

http://picasaweb.google.com/dpiele/USACOAwardsDinner

June 4
Six Flags Great America

June 5
Departure