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2007 Regional Contest Report |
| Site | University | Team Name | Coach | Team Members |
| Adelaide | Univerity of Adelaide | Adelaide 4 | Bradley Alexander | Adam Olley Jaleel Mesbah Lachlan Horne |
| Auckland | University of Auckland | Thursday | Michael Dinneen | Heather Macbeth Matthew Gatland Matthew Steel |
| Brisbane | Griffith University | The Toclafane | Andrew Rock | Michael McMullen Katie McLaughlin Nicholas Dahm |
| Canberra | Australian National University | ANU Grey | Eric McCreath | Alex Davies David Barr Frank Cai |
| Christchurch | University of Canterbury | Canter Coders | Richard Lobb |
Janina Voigt Michal Connole Stephen Fitchett |
| Hobart | Univerity of Tasmania | UTas A | Mike Cameron-Jones | Alex Berry Jet Holloway Josh Deprez |
| Melbourne | University of Melbourne | Carpal Toaster Syndrome | Bernard Pope |
Jonathan Newnham Matt Giuca Richard Fothergill |
| Perth | University of Western Australia | Where's Cameron? | Luigi Barone |
Cameron Patrick Dean Scarff Patrick Coleman |
| Sydney | University of Sydney | A Team | Judy Kay | Anh Pham Enoch Lau Greg Darke |
| Wellington | Victoria University | Hugh_Oli_Mudge | Ian Welch | Hugh Davenport Michael Mudge Oliver Jennings |
Site Reports
Adelaide from Paul Calder
Thanks to the efforts of coaches Brad, Stewart,
and Takeshi, the Adelaide site hosted a record number of teams
this year: 25 real teams and 3 unofficial teams. If we get
any bigger, we'll overflow the building! Nevertheless, all
went fairly smoothly until about about 45 minutes to go when
we had a fire alarm! Fortunately, one of the site officials
was the Chief Warden for the building, so we were able to
avoid an evacuation and only ended up stopping the contest
briefly. Still, having the fire brigade roll up added that
touch of urgency to the final hour!
We got underway a few minutes late (11:45), and from the time
the first correct solution came in (17 minutes) until the
final bell, the judges (led by head judges Takeshi and Richard)
were busy with a steady stream of runs while the technical
staff (led by technical directors Darius and Shawn) kept the
wheels turning smoothly. Thanks also to others who helped
with judging and technical duties on the day (they know who
they are).
At the end, we had one team with 4 solutions, 2 with 3 solutions,
and several with 2 solutions. Congratulations to team "Obfuscate"
from Adelaide University, this year's Adelaide Site Winners,
who solved problems A, C, E, and F in a total time of 836
minutes. Once again, Adelaide University takes home the Golden
Ukulele (our perpetual trophy). Once again, the other universities
have vowed to take it off them next year! Speaking of next
year, the 2008 Adelaide Site will be hosted by Adelaide University
(we rotate between the 3 South Australian universities). We
look forward to an even bigger and better contest next year.
Auckland from Phil Robbins
Our day got off to a worrying start when out techical director of many years, Art Brown, was called away to a family emergency. His assistant, Aaron Cheeseman was thus left in charge on his very first contest! We were pleased to note that the technical preparation had been so good that there were no problems at all.
Glen Archbold once again represented IBM at the opening ceremony, and brought a bag of lollies for each team. Team CIA from University of Auckland came with their medals won in Tokyo to inspire the participants, and stayed to participate as an unofficial team. Competing teams were from University of Auckland, University of Waikato and the hosts, AUT University. Teams from Wellington were able to compete in their home city this year.
Problems were solved steadily throughout the afternoon, with two teams eventually each solving 5 problems. There were issues with one of the problems, which several of our teams tried, so we wait to see if either of the top 2 will gain an extra point in the validation process. The site winners were University of Auckland team 1, with Thursday (also UA) being runners up. Raewyn Boersen and Glen Archbold presented the prizes. We noted that CIA completed the entire problem set with an hour to go!! That's why they were medallists in Tokyo!
Thanks also to Michael Dinneen, Bill Rogers and Perry Lorier who acted as judges, and the AUT staff who helped, Shoba Tegginmath, Gordon Grimsey and Jacqui Whalley.
NOTE In the results verification process, Thursday were found to have solved Problem E and became not only site winners, but Regional Contest Winners!
Brisbane from Malcolm Corney
We had 9 teams in Brisbane this year with
seven from QUT (a new record) and one each from University
of Queensland and Griffith University.
Judging on the day were Diane Corney and Malcolm Corney. Neil
Muspratt provided technical help and we also had help from
Yen Ngo and Sean Mailander. Thanks to all.
The practice competition ironed out the bugs in our system
and we got underway right on the stroke of midday. We had
two teams with 4 correct solutions and the win went to The
Toclafane from Griffith University. The Knights of the GNU
Assembler from QUT repeated their 2nd placing from last year
and University of Queensland's UQ:::TripleLinkedList rounded
out the top three. Knights of the GNU Assembler were the top 2nd year team.
All teams on site solved at least one problem. The most exciting
run of the day came from Problem G where the solution was
reached after 1:59 of execution time. Most had fun, with many
vowing to return next year.
Canberra from Eric McCreath
This year the Canberra site had four teams competing from the ANU. ANU's first year team 'while(true)', made up of Alan Seymour, Maelyn Koo, and Philip Watt, were off to a great start being first to solve a problem. However, ANU Grey, with Alex Davies, David Barr, and Frank Cai, leaped ahead and solved a total of 5 problems. Well done Team Grey!
Overall the contest ran very smoothly, with the pc2 software not causing
any problems. Everyone concerned found this a challenging and enjoyable
day. Many thanks to Bob Edwards for setting up the labs and getting the
pizza.
Christchurch from Richard Lobb
The Christchurch site was rather a last minute cobble-up to accommodate the single South Island team entry from the University of Canterbury. Having agreed to act in the role of, as I thought, figurehead coach for this team, I rashly agreed to run the site as well. Fools Rush in where Angels Fear to Tread. However, we started right on time and everything ran pretty much faultlessly. The team solved four problems and was provisionally placed eighth in the contest and third in New Zealand. I thought this was a superb performance from a team competing in their first event and which had had no real assistance with their preparation.
It's slightly sad that there was only team from the South Island. I
can't speak for the other South Island computer science but I do know
that programming contests are regarded with a certain degree of
ambivalance by the department of Computer Science at the University of
Canterbury. They are not seen as being something the department should
particularly encourage. If other sites have suggestions as to how Heads
of Department can be won over to the cause of programming contests, I
would be interested to hear them.
Hobart from Mike Cameron-Jones
Congratulations to Alex Berry, Josh Deprez and Jet Holloway for winning the Hobart site, as "UTas A". Although the final results await the post-event rejudging, it looks as though Alex and Josh, also in last year's site champion "UTas A" team, have improved upon last year's regional position of 11th. Alex deserves particular congratulation as this is his third consecutive Tasmanian site win out of three attempts. Every team on the site performed well, each solving at least 3 problems, to finish in the regional top half on the day, with "UTas B" (Michael Ford, Christopher Neugebauer and John Swanson) in the regional top 20 on the day, an impressive performance for a first attempt at the event.
Thanks are due to the ACM and IBM for organisation and sponsorship,
and to those who helped out with the site both before and on the day:
Tony Gray (Technical Director), Robyn Gibson (Judge), Matthew Armsby
(Technician), Andrew Spilling (Technician) and Julia Mollison (Travel
and Food Organiser).
Melbourne from Bernie Pope
We had 8 teams in Melbourne. Seven from Melbourne
University, and one from Monash University. I'm a little bit
disappointed that we didn't get teams from any of the other
institutions in Victoria -we will have to work on that in
the future.
We had four judges on the day, Les Kitchen, Andrea Luo, Dana
Zhang (all from Melb Uni) and David Squire from Monash). Lucas
Barbuto provided backup technical support, but fortunately
we didn't need to call upon his services.
The computer gods were smiling on us today and we didn't have
any major problems. A couple of team clients locked up, and
had to be restarted, but that was about it. One team solved
four problems, three teams solved three problems, one team
solved two problems, and three teams solved one problem.
A couple of teams were held up with problems in the judging
data for problem F, though I doubt it had a big impact in
the end.
A few teams tried to crack problem C, but could never beat
the time limit. Everyone seemed to have fun - which means
the day was a success - and not a single slice of pizza was
left at the end.
For the fourth year running, The University of Western Australia hosted
the Perth site of the South Pacific Programming Contest. Twelve teams
braved the early morning cold to take part in the 5-hour international
programming competition that pitted the abilities of the best programmers
from across the Australia/New Zealand region against each other.
Starting at a blistering pace (one team producing their first submission after just 11 minutes), the competition was intense for the full five hours as the teams worked their way through what was generally agreed to be a very challenging problem set. There was however a constant stream of submissions (74 in total at an success rate of 42%), ensuring the judges were kept busy for the entire event. Indeed, by the end, contestants and staff alike were thoroughly drained and exhausted.
Congratulations to eventual winners Patrick Coleman, Cameron Patrick, and Dean Scarff from team "Where's Cameron?" for taking out the Perth competition, besting strong competition from the 11 other teams. Pushed all the way by some intense rivalry, Patrick, Cameron, and Dean secured the win by submitting their fifth correct problem (including one question answered by no other team in the region) with 10 minutes remaining, catapulting them to provisional regional champions.
Team core-dump (a.k.a. the team with the weird name) and team "hitch" managed to complete four questions, with five other teams completing three questions, capping off an impressive effort from the teams from the West. Special mention must also go to the two "fresher" teams for their first-time efforts at the competition. Hopefully the experience they obtained will put them in good stead for subsequent competitions.
Problems A and F proved to the be most popular for the Perth-based teams, followed by E, B, and C. However, not one team successfully completed problem C (all running over the allowed time-limit), suggesting the problem was deceptively more difficult than it first appeared.
All-in-all, the event ran exceedingly smoothly, with all teams seemingly
enjoying the experience. This is in no small part thanks to the excellent
volunteers who helped organise and the run the competition. Thanks are
due to: Ashley Chew (technician), Chris McDonald and Nicola Ritter
(judges), Jen Redman, Lee Triplett, and Jeffrey Pollard (administrative
assistance), and Anthony Di Pietro, JayJay Jegathesan, and Joe Sandon
(logistical support). Special thanks must also be given to IBM and the
ACM for their sponsorship and to the tireless work of the competition
organisers for preparing the competition.
Bring on 2008!
Sydney from Judy Kay
The Sydney Site had 12 teams, 7 from UNSW,
5 from USYD. We started 10 minutes late, but thereafter, all
ran smoothly. Every team solved at least one problem. Three
teams solved 4 problems, two solved 3 and two more solved
2. Congratulations to "A Team", from University
of Sydney, winners for this site, but just a breathe ahead
of the next two teams, "0 Team" and "i Team".
Top first year team was "Alpha team" and top second
year team "i Team".
Thanks to the judges: Shu Ning Bian, Edmund Tse and Alexandre
Mah. The smooth running hugely aided by the volunteer helpers:
Anish Bhuta, Catherine Stewart, Christopher James Ackad, Clarence
Dang, Felix Gordon, Glen Pink, Hugh Garden, John Jiang, Kelton
Temby and Terrytin Wai Miu. Thanks also to support staff,
Josie Spongberand David London, and particularly to Greg Ryan
who made all the machines all behave beautifully. Sydney Site
may well be distinguished by the particularly healthy food,
fresh veges and fruit, which all were consumed (as well as
junk).
The atmosphere was great; the concentration intense, as the
forthcoming pictures will testify. In the post-comp chatting
over snacks, there was much talk of plans for next year, surely
a good portent.
Wellington from Ian Welch
It was our first go at the contest and things ran smoothly for us with
some great support from our student volunteers (Neil Ramsay, Tatsat
Mishra and David Stirling). One team (Hugh_Oli_Mudge) solved three
problems in 333 minutes and (Obscure Reference) solved two problems in
280 minutes. The teams enjoyed themselves and the pizza at the end.
Thanks for Stuart Marshall (co site director) for his help before the day, IBM & ACM for the sponsorship and our School Head for agreeing to subsidy entry for the two teams.
Finally, thanks to everyone involved for their patience when dealing with newbie questions!
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Site Created By: Nick
Meek
Site Maintained By:Phil
Robbins
Last Updated: December 2004