ok.. ppl… long time..
and many things have happened…
I attened my first ICPCs last december…The prelims…
our team name : CSpirit
Prelims was not a problem for us… since we were able to solve few problems during both the Prelims of IIT-K and Amrita… and hence we were qualified for the regionals…
IIT-Kanpur
We attened the ICPC both @ Kanpur (IIT)
and Coimbatore(Amrita Univ)… I would say that we shd have attened only at coimbatore… considering our skills then… but still i guess we did learn something… :)…
Trip to Kanpur was a different one… never had I travelled so north ever b4…
Trip was basically full of eating, sleeping and forest(code-word for mokkai) ….
We did open some algo books during the trip.. like last min. study during exams … it was last min… preperation for contests !!!
Another thing which we cant forget was trouble we faced wid hermaphrodites while going thro andhra !!
In pic: The comp we used during the contest!!!
Kanpur was nothing more than a town i would say… almost all building were painted just in front… the sides were just bricky !! IITK was awesome… The climate was cool…(i mean really cool.. around 5 or 6 *C during nights) i dreamt that type of climate in chennai…!!I was kinda always optimistic bout what we could do during the contest… the other guys were not much appreciative in words bout that… So where did we end up in the contest… We did spend the 4 hours hours contest time trying to solve problemS… but didnt solve even 1 !! did we come 2000 kms for this !!:((…. We shd have concentrated on solving one problem at a time rather than splitting the problems… we cudnt solve even the easiest of the problems… :(…. I did came to know some new ppl… like Prasanna , NITT who got the first place.. Also came to know our Seniors from CEG… who accompanied us during the return trip… Same eating, sleeping and forest during the return journey… So thus ended our tour of ~4000 Kms.. with a honourable mention!!
link: http://www.cse.iitk.ac.in/users/acm/
Amrita Univ
About a week later, we were off to Coimbatore… It was kinda more relaxing for us… the journey was during night and was just 1 night… which means one sleep and ull be there @ the place.. !! wow !! :p… Another thing was that, ppl speak Tamil in Coimbatore!! so was quite happy….
The Climate was cool… not as cool as Kanpur.. but stay @ Chennai for bout a week… made me to feel that way… This time i was always stressing on the guys to be +ve !!! We knew we were not that bad to solve 0 probs even here !!!
We decided to solve 1 prob at a time…
The Practice Sessions were horrible… We got freakin responses from the judge during practice sessions… Compile Errors and TLE for no reason… We were kinda feelin Cryptic bout the Judge…..and hoped it doent happen that way during the contest.. We were discussing 1 of the practice probs which we coudnt solve…. we were then learning new technique of backtracking to solve problems…. Kinda most used technique to solve constraint based problems and puzzles… and it helped us a lot during the contest….
It Started… and going thro all the questions.. at first we thot… that we could solve one or two… but within a couple of hours … we had solved 2 problems…
It really gave us a boost… I wont forget to mention we had refreshments during the contest !! :D…. And after being busy for 3 problems, i was kinda havin rest… and I ate Srivathsan’s cake & biscuits along wid mine.. !!! poor guy.. was busy wid other problem.. !!
Just b4 the ranklist was freezed 1/2 hr b4 the contest… we were 2nd the Ranklist.. just after CodeMonkeys !! wow.. we cudnt just blive it.. We have a chance of going to finals if we maintain that postion till the end of the contest !!! :p… But we were very happy that we cud do this much especially after the Kanpur thingy…
When the results were announced.. we were in 8th place !! :o…
So after many rejudging and stuff we were put in 8th place.. !! We were not really sad or nything… we cud solve 5/7 probs…
link : http://www.amrita.edu/icpc/2006/Standings.html
I would say… of all the tech fests i attend, i like Abacus the most…
We got first prize in programming event…
