It's been rather quiet on this blog as everybody has been busy touristing, socialising and then flying! Having just completed another 24 hours of flying, we're finally back on solid ground in Oz (except Robert who has even further to trek!)
The AMT's website has a spiel, complete with some more photos, at http://www.amt.edu.au/ioi2010.html.
Monday, August 23, 2010
Saturday, August 21, 2010
Last days in Canada
On Wednesday, we had our final day of competition. I was feeling a bit sick for it, but once in there I started feeling fine. The problems were a lot like the first day, and I got the first two out quite quickly, and then spent the remaining 3 hours on the final 2 questions. One was an output only task, which means that we didn't have to submit a program for it, just the output data. This meant I could do a few of the test cases by hand, which was quite fun. After finishing it feeling pretty confident and meeting Bernard outside, I realised I had achieved a bronze medal, an achievement I felt pretty happy with.
The rest of the day was spent playing Bartog, Sticks and the Hat Game with other teams. All of this was fun, and I went to sleep very easily after a late night.
Unfortunately, the next day I was meant to wake up at 5:30 am to catch a bus to Niagara falls at 6:30. My alarm failed, and so I was awakened by knocking on my door again, after it was realised that Evgeny had stayed up the whole night.
After hurriedly bolting my breakfast, I rushed to the buses and just got on one, only to wait for 1 hour before the bus actually left the university. It took us 1.5 hours to get there, in which the rest of the team slept, but we all seemed to gain a bit of energy after first seeing the falls.
The falls themselves were quite spectacular. The sheer power of the water just floating off the edge of cliff was amazing, and we all took lots of photos. We then went under one of the sides of the falls, and looked up into it, which was again amazing. We then had lunch at an all-you-can-eat place, which served fish and chips, a nice reminder of home.
The next attraction we participated in was a boat ride in the lake under the falls. We got extremely close to the falls, such so that we got quite wet and only the ponchos which we had put on before hopping on saved us from being drenched. Again, there were spectacular views and lots of pictures were taken.
After going back to the buses, I played a variant of Masters and Slaves with the French, which was very fun as they spoke commonly in French. Once back on the bus, I was shown Black Magic and showed others Sticks, both which were quite annoying to work out for the parties who did not know the rules. The rest of the day was similar.
I slept in till 8:30, and quickly had breakfast before meeting up with the Irish team and going to the shopping centre. Here I bought a number of gifts, and also saw some of the Canadian culture. After rushing back and just making it in time for lunch, I met up with the Australian leaders, who told us the plan for the next couple of events. I then got changed into my blazer in preparation for the closing ceremony.
The closing ceremony was very entertaining. We began by having a very high quality dinner, and then going through the medals. I was awarded my bronze, and when the Belarus guy was awarded his first place, a standing ovation was displayed for a full minute. Afterward, we had photos with the teams we had gotten to know over the event, such as the Irish, French, Russian, USA, UK, New Zealand and more.
Arriving back to the university, we played some games and then I went to sleep.
The rest of the day was spent playing Bartog, Sticks and the Hat Game with other teams. All of this was fun, and I went to sleep very easily after a late night.
Unfortunately, the next day I was meant to wake up at 5:30 am to catch a bus to Niagara falls at 6:30. My alarm failed, and so I was awakened by knocking on my door again, after it was realised that Evgeny had stayed up the whole night.
After hurriedly bolting my breakfast, I rushed to the buses and just got on one, only to wait for 1 hour before the bus actually left the university. It took us 1.5 hours to get there, in which the rest of the team slept, but we all seemed to gain a bit of energy after first seeing the falls.
The falls themselves were quite spectacular. The sheer power of the water just floating off the edge of cliff was amazing, and we all took lots of photos. We then went under one of the sides of the falls, and looked up into it, which was again amazing. We then had lunch at an all-you-can-eat place, which served fish and chips, a nice reminder of home.
The next attraction we participated in was a boat ride in the lake under the falls. We got extremely close to the falls, such so that we got quite wet and only the ponchos which we had put on before hopping on saved us from being drenched. Again, there were spectacular views and lots of pictures were taken.
After going back to the buses, I played a variant of Masters and Slaves with the French, which was very fun as they spoke commonly in French. Once back on the bus, I was shown Black Magic and showed others Sticks, both which were quite annoying to work out for the parties who did not know the rules. The rest of the day was similar.
I slept in till 8:30, and quickly had breakfast before meeting up with the Irish team and going to the shopping centre. Here I bought a number of gifts, and also saw some of the Canadian culture. After rushing back and just making it in time for lunch, I met up with the Australian leaders, who told us the plan for the next couple of events. I then got changed into my blazer in preparation for the closing ceremony.
The closing ceremony was very entertaining. We began by having a very high quality dinner, and then going through the medals. I was awarded my bronze, and when the Belarus guy was awarded his first place, a standing ovation was displayed for a full minute. Afterward, we had photos with the teams we had gotten to know over the event, such as the Irish, French, Russian, USA, UK, New Zealand and more.
Arriving back to the university, we played some games and then I went to sleep.
Thursday, August 19, 2010
Some press coverage
There is a whole raft of media at the IOI this year and many students/leaders have been thrown in front of a microphone or camera. Here is one news clip that aired on Canadian National Television, starring one of our very own!
http://www.southwesternontario.ctv.ca/news.php?id=7955
http://www.southwesternontario.ctv.ca/news.php?id=7955
Competition Day 2
The students have been busy competing and relaxing, so here is some more from me!
The contest this year was remarkably different to previous years - there was a much stronger focus on creative problem solving with ad-hoc techniques rather than drawing on tools and techniques commonly seen in the IOI. And whilst there was warning that this might be the case, the true extent of the changes took a vast majority of people by surprise, including Australia. Several teams who often perform very well also seem to have found it difficult to adapt.
The Australian team had a much better time coming to grips with the changes on day 2 of the competition, with all the students coming in the top 50% on day 2. The scores were all very very close. A brilliant effort had Luke in the day 2 rankings at 28th(!!!!) (out of 304) with 322/400 points and both Kenneth and Evgeny ranking equal 65th with 311/400 points. Combined with day 1 scores, the team's overall scores were:
The entire Australian team has put in an incredible effort and are taking the afternoon off to unwind with the other contestants. Tomorrow, we journey to Niagara Falls at the un-Australian hour of 6:45am... I suspect there will be lots of sleeping on the bus, but what a way to end the week!
The contest this year was remarkably different to previous years - there was a much stronger focus on creative problem solving with ad-hoc techniques rather than drawing on tools and techniques commonly seen in the IOI. And whilst there was warning that this might be the case, the true extent of the changes took a vast majority of people by surprise, including Australia. Several teams who often perform very well also seem to have found it difficult to adapt.
The Australian team had a much better time coming to grips with the changes on day 2 of the competition, with all the students coming in the top 50% on day 2. The scores were all very very close. A brilliant effort had Luke in the day 2 rankings at 28th(!!!!) (out of 304) with 322/400 points and both Kenneth and Evgeny ranking equal 65th with 311/400 points. Combined with day 1 scores, the team's overall scores were:
- Evgeny: 594
- Kenneth: 501
- Luke: 566
- Robert: 514
The entire Australian team has put in an incredible effort and are taking the afternoon off to unwind with the other contestants. Tomorrow, we journey to Niagara Falls at the un-Australian hour of 6:45am... I suspect there will be lots of sleeping on the bus, but what a way to end the week!
Wednesday, August 18, 2010
So today I woke up around 7am, and was immediately struck by how tired I was, so turned off my alarm. This turned out to be a sort of serious mistake, as an hour later me and Evgeny were rudely woken up by Kenneth and Robert smashing on our door, alerting us to the fact that the buses to Canada's Wonderland, today's event, were going to be leaving soon. This caused us to dash out of bed, and quickly get changed and head up to breakfast, which we also bolted down.
After doing so, we went with our guide to the buses, and drove to the Wonderland. It took about 1.5 hours to get there, so a few of us caught up on sleep from last night. The rest of us looked over the landscape as we passed it, and when we arrived we woke up the others.
We preceded to group together and try and pass through security. I was stopped for holding a Vortex, which I hope Bernard got back (at this time we are in quarantine, so I can not check). After handing it over, Bernard, Kenneth, Robert, Chris and I got separated from the others and went to the Time Warp ride, which was basically a rollercoaster except you were 'Supermaning', or lying on your stomach with your hands out. To get to this ride, we waited for about 1 hour, and fortunately Bernard did not want to go on it, as it was only in groups of 4.
After exiting it and feeling very alive, we walked around for a while, noticing the incredibly long queues, as it was the school holidays and there were lots of children. We decided to head to laser tag, as we had vouchers for that place. After waiting there for a while, we started a game, which turned out to be quite fun.
It was then lunch, and we went to join up with the other informatics and find out what they did. The lunch itself was OK, being mass produced hamburgers, frankfurters and steak. After finding the rest of our group, we joined up with the Poms and Kiwis to go to another ride, a wooden rollercoaster, and then some of us to the water park and the rest to continue going on rides. We partly got distracted, and so broke off earlier than we planned, and so only me and Kenneth and two of the Poms went on the ride, where we met up with another guide.
After having enormous fun on the ride and wanting more, we went to another, in which we stood up while being taken around on a rollercoaster. This was again fun, and so we went to the ride where you are gradually spun around in a full 360 degrees. I sat out of this one, and saw the other fragment of our group come, who apparently had not had as much fun as they had expected at the water park, due to long queues. We then went on the wooden rollercoaster again, and after that we went back to the buses, where everyone was very tired and so went to sleep.
Back at the university, we had dinner then played Bartog, then finally went to bed, ready or not for tomorrow's exam.
After doing so, we went with our guide to the buses, and drove to the Wonderland. It took about 1.5 hours to get there, so a few of us caught up on sleep from last night. The rest of us looked over the landscape as we passed it, and when we arrived we woke up the others.
We preceded to group together and try and pass through security. I was stopped for holding a Vortex, which I hope Bernard got back (at this time we are in quarantine, so I can not check). After handing it over, Bernard, Kenneth, Robert, Chris and I got separated from the others and went to the Time Warp ride, which was basically a rollercoaster except you were 'Supermaning', or lying on your stomach with your hands out. To get to this ride, we waited for about 1 hour, and fortunately Bernard did not want to go on it, as it was only in groups of 4.
After exiting it and feeling very alive, we walked around for a while, noticing the incredibly long queues, as it was the school holidays and there were lots of children. We decided to head to laser tag, as we had vouchers for that place. After waiting there for a while, we started a game, which turned out to be quite fun.
It was then lunch, and we went to join up with the other informatics and find out what they did. The lunch itself was OK, being mass produced hamburgers, frankfurters and steak. After finding the rest of our group, we joined up with the Poms and Kiwis to go to another ride, a wooden rollercoaster, and then some of us to the water park and the rest to continue going on rides. We partly got distracted, and so broke off earlier than we planned, and so only me and Kenneth and two of the Poms went on the ride, where we met up with another guide.
After having enormous fun on the ride and wanting more, we went to another, in which we stood up while being taken around on a rollercoaster. This was again fun, and so we went to the ride where you are gradually spun around in a full 360 degrees. I sat out of this one, and saw the other fragment of our group come, who apparently had not had as much fun as they had expected at the water park, due to long queues. We then went on the wooden rollercoaster again, and after that we went back to the buses, where everyone was very tired and so went to sleep.
Back at the university, we had dinner then played Bartog, then finally went to bed, ready or not for tomorrow's exam.
Fun Day 1
The first major IOI outing was to Wonderland in Toronto - a great way to spend a day! As soon as we got through the gates, our guide Vanessa rushed us to one of the most attractive rides around - the Behemoth - rushing, so that we could beat the holiday queues. In the rush, Robert was distracted by an item of clothing with his name on it and could not resist the opportunity.
Between this distraction and Bernard trying to orient himself on a map, we separated and not all of us made it to the Behemoth. Instead, Robert, Luke, Kenneth, Bernard and Chris queued up for the Time Warp - an aptly named ride where time is lost in queues, all for 40 seconds of joy. However, a bold "Aussie! Aussie! Aussie!" at the top of the ride made sure the Australian team did not go unnoticed.
After a sweaty game of laser tag and lunch with the Kiwis, the leaders separated from the team, not to see them again until after tomorrow's contest. All in all, a fun day and refreshing break from the happenings of the contest itself.
Competition Day 2 tomorrow...
Between this distraction and Bernard trying to orient himself on a map, we separated and not all of us made it to the Behemoth. Instead, Robert, Luke, Kenneth, Bernard and Chris queued up for the Time Warp - an aptly named ride where time is lost in queues, all for 40 seconds of joy. However, a bold "Aussie! Aussie! Aussie!" at the top of the ride made sure the Australian team did not go unnoticed.
After a sweaty game of laser tag and lunch with the Kiwis, the leaders separated from the team, not to see them again until after tomorrow's contest. All in all, a fun day and refreshing break from the happenings of the contest itself.
Competition Day 2 tomorrow...
Tuesday, August 17, 2010
Competition Day 1
So today we had our first competition day. It was sad. I unfortunately had trouble sleeping, and the exam didn't go as well as I had hoped, partly due to me failing and also the difference in what I had expected and the actual tasks on the day.
Apart from that, today was quite fun. I spent a while playing Mao and the Hat game, all which was quite fun. We also spent some good time outside, which hopefully will help me sleep tonight.
I'm really tired right now, so I'm going to go to sleep.
Apart from that, today was quite fun. I spent a while playing Mao and the Hat game, all which was quite fun. We also spent some good time outside, which hopefully will help me sleep tonight.
I'm really tired right now, so I'm going to go to sleep.
Monday, August 16, 2010
Video streams from the back room
There are also live video feeds from the room of the Scientific Committee, complete with amusing commentary. Head over to http://www.justin.tv/ioi2010.
Day 1 live scoreboard
With the practice round just over, tomorrow morning here will see the first day of competition begin. This will start around 8:30pm Monday night in Perth or 10:30pm Monday night on the East coast. The live scoreboard will be here. The contest will run for 5 hours into the dark of the night for .au. We're told that the live scoreboard is only a guide and may cease updating at any time.
Apparently anyone can play at home too with nothing but your brains and a mouse. See here for more detail.
And here's an action shot from today's practice contest! (just don't look too closely...)
Apparently anyone can play at home too with nothing but your brains and a mouse. See here for more detail.
And here's an action shot from today's practice contest! (just don't look too closely...)
Day 1 - Opening ceremony
So today was the first official day of the IOI. I began the day by waking up to a nuclear siren going off, our alarm for the next 7 days. After recovering from the shock, and having a quick shower where privacy comes after economy, me and Evgeny went to the breakfast hall and had breakfast with the English. We then met Bernard while heading back to our rooms, who instructed us to wake the others up and get them dressed in their blazers, so that we could catch a bus instead of walking. We decided to neglect the detail that there was multiple buses, so Kenneth and Robert had fun rushing up to breakfast only to find that there was no real need.
The opening ceremony itself was quite good. They began by having a Canadian Celtic band play, who were quite good. Then they replaced it with multiple people welcoming us to the IOI in different languages, and finally the main organiser, Troy, spoke for a while about the importance of this in our lives. Then a trick/comedy duo performed, which was slightly entertaining, but clearly pitched to a different audience. After this, we were entertained by cheerleaders, which again was quite awkward and we the audience did not appreciate maybe as much as others would have. Finally, a boy archipelago group sang several songs, which was easy to listen to.
After the ceremony, Robert was interviewed by Canada National Television, and showed his true bogan side to them. We also got Peter Taylor, the head of AMT, to have an intimate time with the cheerleaders, as can be seen in some of the photos. After this, we headed back to the university, for lunch and the practise session.
For lunch, the queue was incredibly long, meaning we were almost late to the practise session. In the session, we played tetris and minesweeper, printed off documents with the text "Please hand to the hottest guy in the room". The problems presented we had all seen before, meaning me and Evgeny got off to a perfect start to the IOI, hopefully a good sign for tomorrow.
After the problem session, we went and had some dinner as we were all incredibly tired, and so afterwards played a bit of Bartog before meeting with Bernard to discuss the final changes before the leaders went into quarantine. During this the Internet was shut down, which is why this is posted the day after it had all happened.
The opening ceremony itself was quite good. They began by having a Canadian Celtic band play, who were quite good. Then they replaced it with multiple people welcoming us to the IOI in different languages, and finally the main organiser, Troy, spoke for a while about the importance of this in our lives. Then a trick/comedy duo performed, which was slightly entertaining, but clearly pitched to a different audience. After this, we were entertained by cheerleaders, which again was quite awkward and we the audience did not appreciate maybe as much as others would have. Finally, a boy archipelago group sang several songs, which was easy to listen to.
After the ceremony, Robert was interviewed by Canada National Television, and showed his true bogan side to them. We also got Peter Taylor, the head of AMT, to have an intimate time with the cheerleaders, as can be seen in some of the photos. After this, we headed back to the university, for lunch and the practise session.
For lunch, the queue was incredibly long, meaning we were almost late to the practise session. In the session, we played tetris and minesweeper, printed off documents with the text "Please hand to the hottest guy in the room". The problems presented we had all seen before, meaning me and Evgeny got off to a perfect start to the IOI, hopefully a good sign for tomorrow.
After the problem session, we went and had some dinner as we were all incredibly tired, and so afterwards played a bit of Bartog before meeting with Bernard to discuss the final changes before the leaders went into quarantine. During this the Internet was shut down, which is why this is posted the day after it had all happened.
Sunday, August 15, 2010
First day at the IOI
The first day at the IOI has been amazing. The people, the place and of course the swag have been great. Our guide is very nice and everything seems extremely organised.
We left for Waterloo University from the Waterloo Inn at 9:30, I was quite surprised at how short the trip was. On our arrival we met our friendly guide Vanessa who gave us a tour of the campus and our college.
The food here is edible, but still it's the IOI so everything is by definition awesome.
An introduction to the IOI
So today we finally were at the actual place where we would be competing, sleeping and eating for the next 8 days. After waking up at around 7am, and feeling really tired, I managed to have some nice pancakes with maple syrup, apparently a Canadian special. We then packed our stuff, and boarded a bus which would take us to the university campus.
After arriving there, we were all pretty excited and ready to be, as Jarrah challenged us 'sociable', a somewhat foreign concept to us. We managed to meet a nice Belgium guy, who we spent a while talking to, and when we went on a tour of the campus he came along as well. By this time, the already moderately warm day had turned quite hot, and was quickly becoming very humid. After spending an hour walking around, we were all very sweaty and after quickly eating lunch, went to our rooms to change.
After eating lunch, we decided to fulfill Jarrah's challenge by bringing some cards up to the lunch tables and playing Bartog, an interesting game which encourages memory, logic and speed, all things that an information would need, thus explaining its part in the Australian selection process. After getting bored of that, we went exploring in search of a candy shop, and while on the way Evgeny decided to climb a pole, chase a squirrel and climb trees. While on the way we found the Macedonians and the English, both who we had interesting discussions with. After heading back to socialise again, we had dinner and went to a welcoming party.
The welcoming party was fun, meeting the French, Irish and a news reporter. We soon left though, to go play Bartog and the hat game with the New Zealanders and Irish, and after getting too tired, going to sleep.
After arriving there, we were all pretty excited and ready to be, as Jarrah challenged us 'sociable', a somewhat foreign concept to us. We managed to meet a nice Belgium guy, who we spent a while talking to, and when we went on a tour of the campus he came along as well. By this time, the already moderately warm day had turned quite hot, and was quickly becoming very humid. After spending an hour walking around, we were all very sweaty and after quickly eating lunch, went to our rooms to change.
After eating lunch, we decided to fulfill Jarrah's challenge by bringing some cards up to the lunch tables and playing Bartog, an interesting game which encourages memory, logic and speed, all things that an information would need, thus explaining its part in the Australian selection process. After getting bored of that, we went exploring in search of a candy shop, and while on the way Evgeny decided to climb a pole, chase a squirrel and climb trees. While on the way we found the Macedonians and the English, both who we had interesting discussions with. After heading back to socialise again, we had dinner and went to a welcoming party.
The welcoming party was fun, meeting the French, Irish and a news reporter. We soon left though, to go play Bartog and the hat game with the New Zealanders and Irish, and after getting too tired, going to sleep.
Friday the thirteenth
I haven't blogged since Thursday, so here it goes.
Friday 13th
Uhh... yeah...
Was woken up by Bernard at about 6 AM. Nothing notable happened, apart from I think Robert losing his shoes somewhere in my room. Don't know how that happened.
I don't remember most of the 20 hour long flights, so I will omit that boring part. That said, planes are loud and impossible to sleep in. We have arrived at Toronto at something like 6PM, making it a (not-so-) great 36-hour long Friday.
Ran into the Russian team in Waterloo Inn, and Australians made me act as a translator for them.
Saturday 14th
Quote of the day: "But I don't have dyslexica... oh wait..."
Arrived to Waterloo University :D We played Bartog several times during the day. Found the kiwi team, pom team, american team, french team, irish team, something team, etc.
We also had a party that was meant for us to socialise, but we ended up talking in our own social circles. And Kolstad was bagging out that kind of behaviour, which was amusing to listen to :D
Some reporter for Wired took an interview, so we're now famous (need those medals!).
Day 0 is tomorrow, as well as the opening ceremony. Looking forward to spending several hours in a humid, hot hall in a blazer and pants.
Saturday, August 14, 2010
First day in Canada
(Disclaimer: I am writing this after 40 hours of only getting 2 hours sleep, and slightly jet lagged, so please excuse all bad grammar/spelling)
So today/yesterday we left for Canada, waking up at 6:00 (Or 6:20 with Bernard frantically knocking on our door), and had a quick breakfast before catching cabs to the airport. Once there, we began the long process of checking in, getting past security and boarding the flight, all which took us right up to taking off. We quickly found out that this airline (Qantas), does not provide battle tetris, and so much disappointment was had. After getting over this, I watched some great movies, like Shrek 4, Greenzone, Iron man 2 ect. After realising that it was early in the morning Canadian time, I attempted to go to sleep.
Sleeping on planes is an interesting thing. On one hand, there is an incredible amount of noise, which hinders you actually falling asleep. On the other, after successfully dozing off, you will often wake up feeling stiff, dehydrated and incredibly cramped. All of these led to me only getting about 2 hours in total.
After waking up, and watching more TV and movies, we arrived at Los Angeles. The security there was immense, with all of us getting our fingerprints taken and taking our shoes off for the scan. Although this was bad, I was quite excited to be in a foreign country, and this woke me up enough for the next flight.
The actual trip from the US to Canadia is a bit of a blur. I remember dozing off a bit, but managed to mostly keep myself awake for the trip. We then arrived in Canada, went through its security and caught a bus to our hotel.
After dumping our bags, we went to a Canadian restaurant, which served a variety of dishes. I got a Thai red curry, while others got lasaga, burgers and fish and chips. This was quite a nice dinner, but by the end I was immensely tired and ready to go to bed (after writing this blog post).
On a side note, this was the longest Friday the 13th I've ever experienced.
So today/yesterday we left for Canada, waking up at 6:00 (Or 6:20 with Bernard frantically knocking on our door), and had a quick breakfast before catching cabs to the airport. Once there, we began the long process of checking in, getting past security and boarding the flight, all which took us right up to taking off. We quickly found out that this airline (Qantas), does not provide battle tetris, and so much disappointment was had. After getting over this, I watched some great movies, like Shrek 4, Greenzone, Iron man 2 ect. After realising that it was early in the morning Canadian time, I attempted to go to sleep.
Sleeping on planes is an interesting thing. On one hand, there is an incredible amount of noise, which hinders you actually falling asleep. On the other, after successfully dozing off, you will often wake up feeling stiff, dehydrated and incredibly cramped. All of these led to me only getting about 2 hours in total.
After waking up, and watching more TV and movies, we arrived at Los Angeles. The security there was immense, with all of us getting our fingerprints taken and taking our shoes off for the scan. Although this was bad, I was quite excited to be in a foreign country, and this woke me up enough for the next flight.
The actual trip from the US to Canadia is a bit of a blur. I remember dozing off a bit, but managed to mostly keep myself awake for the trip. We then arrived in Canada, went through its security and caught a bus to our hotel.
After dumping our bags, we went to a Canadian restaurant, which served a variety of dishes. I got a Thai red curry, while others got lasaga, burgers and fish and chips. This was quite a nice dinner, but by the end I was immensely tired and ready to go to bed (after writing this blog post).
On a side note, this was the longest Friday the 13th I've ever experienced.
Longest Friday 13th ever
Departures day... After some heavy door knocking 20 minutes after everyone was supposed to be awake, most of the team finally fell out of bed. That was almost 30 hours ago now on Friday the 13th, and there is still another hour until Friday the 13th comes to an end. It wasn't terribly unlucky though, except for Robert who somehow lost his shoes between Evgeny's room and the breakfast table...
Shoes recovered, we flew seamlessly to LAX about 16 hours later, where the team attempted to put on their best warrior faces.
After a brief lunch at some very American food chains and a fantastic game of Bartog (a first for the trip, surprisingly!), we proceeded on our way to Toronto. At this point, most of us had gone without internet for longer than we'd ever had since we were born. The toll this was taking on the team was evident on the flight as Luke struggled to stay awake, Evgeny spent 3 hours in the brace position, Kenneth crashed, and Robert examined the effects of the plane's banking on gravity.
We were all drained after such long flights and having been disconnected from the world for so long. Many queues and waits later at Toronto airport, an unexpected saviour cheered up the team - its effect appearing to surpass that of caffeine or any energy drink known to man. We found free internet!
The drive from the airport to Waterloo let us watch a marvelous Canadian sunset slide away over the landscape, hopefully setting our bodyclocks back into kilter. A delightful dinner finished the longest Friday 13th ever, with eight thumbs up. Ginger & pear juice... yum!
Shoes recovered, we flew seamlessly to LAX about 16 hours later, where the team attempted to put on their best warrior faces.
After a brief lunch at some very American food chains and a fantastic game of Bartog (a first for the trip, surprisingly!), we proceeded on our way to Toronto. At this point, most of us had gone without internet for longer than we'd ever had since we were born. The toll this was taking on the team was evident on the flight as Luke struggled to stay awake, Evgeny spent 3 hours in the brace position, Kenneth crashed, and Robert examined the effects of the plane's banking on gravity.
We were all drained after such long flights and having been disconnected from the world for so long. Many queues and waits later at Toronto airport, an unexpected saviour cheered up the team - its effect appearing to surpass that of caffeine or any energy drink known to man. We found free internet!
The drive from the airport to Waterloo let us watch a marvelous Canadian sunset slide away over the landscape, hopefully setting our bodyclocks back into kilter. A delightful dinner finished the longest Friday 13th ever, with eight thumbs up. Ginger & pear juice... yum!
Living the dream
Back in 2008 I found the Australian informatics Olympiad on the Australian mathematics trust’s website, and inevitably came to the section about that year’s IOI team. I was astounded and amazed that there was a way for programming to get me overseas representing Australia. Then I saw an IOI problem. Needless to say, it was quite problematic and I had no way of solving it. I wasn’t sure that I would ever be able to solve it. After that I placed the kids that went to an IOI up on a seemingly unreachable perch.
Last year my maths teacher chanced across me mentioning the maths olympiad, that prompted him to dig up a letter asking the school for entries in the Australian Informatics Olympiad (AIO). At that stage I only knew the programming language python, so it was quite fortunate that 2009 was the first year that python was accepted as a language.
Since it was my first informatics competition I assumed that I would go quite poorly, so I read the results from bottom to top. I quickly realised that I hadn’t gotten a bronze, that got my hopes up for a silver, It then struck me that I hadn’t gotten a silver either. I wasn’t hopeful of getting a gold, and I almost stopped reading halfway through gold. So when I saw that I game second, and by two points no less, to someone that had done extremely well last year, I was overjoyed, this was compounded by being invited to the December informatics camp at the ANU.
The months in the lead up to the camp were spend learning C++ (another programming language) and solving problems on the Australian informatics training website. After many sleepless nights problems started to get progressively easier.
The December camp was amazing, I had never been surrounded by so many people that were shared the same interests! It was amazing and wonderful and incredible and it was over in 10 days. I really only came down from the high the AIO gave me on the plane home.
Everyone from the camp was invited to sit the Australian Invitational Informatics Olympiad and the French Australian Regional Informatics Olympiad. My results from these secured me an invitation to the IOI team selection camp that April. This was another incredible event, since this camp meant I was only one step off an IOI. Quite openly, I didn’t like my chances of making it this year, the words “Quit while I’m ahead” jokingly crossed my lips on more than one occasion.
I slept really well the night before the first selection exam, I mean, I didn’t expect to do that well, so there was no stress. Almost unfortunately, day one went very well, so the pressure was on for the second day. In the second exam I got the first three questions out fairly promptly, but I feared that my solution for the fourth and final question was going to be too slow. It occurred to me that this question may be all that was standing between me and an IOI. So I put my head down and nutted out the solution that was fast enough.
The wait after selection exam two was possibly the most stress I have ever endured, I had gotten out all the questions, but there was a lingering thought that I must have made some small error that would cost me dearly. Tradition dictates that the process for revealing the team is as strenuous as possible, while the team is being decided all the students are locked in a room together. Once the team has been decided the students play cards to choose the order for people to leave the room and find out if they have been selected or not. It didn’t help my mental health in the slightest that I was the third last one out.
Walking up the stairs to where Bernard and Jarrah were I was so nervous that I was shaking, when they offered me a place on the team I continued to shake. It didn’t hit me that I would be going off to Canada in a few months.
Sitting on the plane to Los Angeles It’s kind of dawning on me that I’m on my way to an IOI. The people surrounding me have won 6 IOI medals between them, and I hope to join their ranks soon.
Sitting on this plane to Los Angeles I’m living my impossible dream.
Thursday, August 12, 2010
The inclusive group of exclusivity
The last day in Australia started with me waking up way too early. I didn't realise we had a late start of 9AM, as opposed to the usual 0830. The exam was altered to be slightly shorter, 4 hours long, with only 3 questions.
The first one was tricky to implement, it took me roughly 3 submissions before realising that my maths was horribly broken (I cannot add numbers manually). This kind of error happened to me quite a few times this week, actually. Spending the remaining 3 hours on 2 questions, I think I arrived to some kind of a solution, but it ended up being more tricky that expected.
The free afternoon was uneventful, and doing the exam questions made it even more so. We had Emanuel kids come over, with Rafi being exceedingly loud.
Leaving for Canadia (haha Luke) tomorrow, going to sleep now.
The exam was shorter than normal, to accommodate people going home to get their bags. So instead of the usual 4 questions 5 hours, it was 3 questions 4 hours. I'm quite satisfied with my performance, hopefully this has been enough prep for the IOI.
The free afternoon was AMAZING, this cannot be stressed enough. I met up with some people I knew from hs1917 and we spent the afternoon/night having insane amounts of fun. Also I picked up my team mascot, aptly named Anarchy.
Dinner too was amazing, the other hs1917 kids came along, and it was fun and everything was just simply incredible.
Also the thai was a bit hot for me, but I'm disregarding that because of how amazingly awesomely optimal the rest of the day was.
Yours Sincerely,
Robert Newey.
Last day in Australia
So today was the last full day before we left for the IOI. After a refreshing night's sleep, and another early breakfast, I felt ready to tackle the problems that would be given to us in our trial exam. We had a bit of a difficulty to begin, as the room we originally had planned to sit it in was booked (this was a room that had the air conditioning "accidentally" set to 29 degrees, getting us used to Canadian temperatures), and so we quickly dashed to another lab.
The first problem I tackled was the full feedback one (you could check what you scored for it immediately), and I quickly observed the necessary solution. After a couple of 'huh?' moments after not getting 100%, followed by realising a crucial bug that was screwing it up, I finished it and looked at the next, a much harder one. This time, I was unable to think of the solution immediately, and so only partially solved it before the exam had ended.
Again, this was slightly depressing, but I drew confidence from the fact Evgeny and Kenneth scored close to what I did, indicating that it was very hard. We then went and had lunch, and this time I got some not particularly noteworthy fried rice. Then Evgeny, Kenneth and I headed back to the rooms, with them intending to stay there while I went home to back my bag fully.
The trip home was not particularly eventful, as I have done similar trips before, but killed 3 hours. After arriving back and quickly dumping my new bag, I turned around and was quite shocked to find the mirror of our room drawed on in whiteboard markers. Evgeny, when I showed him it, realised the possibility it presented for doing informatics and so we went into his room for a impromptu problem session.
The rest of the day consisted of dinner at a Thai place, which ended up with all of us getting curries and Kenneth getting a phobia of glasses being knocked over. After this, we went back to our rooms, leaving time for us to pack and go to bed early for the big day tomorrow.
The first problem I tackled was the full feedback one (you could check what you scored for it immediately), and I quickly observed the necessary solution. After a couple of 'huh?' moments after not getting 100%, followed by realising a crucial bug that was screwing it up, I finished it and looked at the next, a much harder one. This time, I was unable to think of the solution immediately, and so only partially solved it before the exam had ended.
Again, this was slightly depressing, but I drew confidence from the fact Evgeny and Kenneth scored close to what I did, indicating that it was very hard. We then went and had lunch, and this time I got some not particularly noteworthy fried rice. Then Evgeny, Kenneth and I headed back to the rooms, with them intending to stay there while I went home to back my bag fully.
The trip home was not particularly eventful, as I have done similar trips before, but killed 3 hours. After arriving back and quickly dumping my new bag, I turned around and was quite shocked to find the mirror of our room drawed on in whiteboard markers. Evgeny, when I showed him it, realised the possibility it presented for doing informatics and so we went into his room for a impromptu problem session.
The rest of the day consisted of dinner at a Thai place, which ended up with all of us getting curries and Kenneth getting a phobia of glasses being knocked over. After this, we went back to our rooms, leaving time for us to pack and go to bed early for the big day tomorrow.
Still alive
So this post is going to be the post that was meant to go up several hours ago when the Internet connection I'm working off was offline.
Finally managed to wake up at the planned time of 7:10 today. The hope is that I'd be able to wake myself up properly and get breakfast finished before at least one other person so I stop being the reason we go to the labs late. After having seen everyone else regularly buy the pancakes and appear to enjoy them, I tried the same. Unfortunately, I was wise enough to try and spend precisely $25, I ordered fried eggs too and couldn't finish it in a reasonable amount of time, holding back everyone and yet again being the reason we got to the labs late.
Yet another practice paper (the third, if my counting ability doesn't fail me). In my opinion, this exam was harder than yesterday's, not only because I didn't do terribly well, but also because trying to understand the solutions to two of the three harder problems takes a fair while longer than yesterday's exam. The full feedback problem was certainly more difficult than the usual full feedback problems that I've grown used to. Most of the time, the full feedback problem requires some reasonably trivial algorithm to be implemented, not needing too much thought to go into arriving at an algorithm that solves the task (since feedback is usually to assist competitors produce codes with less errors, rather than assist competitors in solving the task on an algorithmic level). Though in terms of the algorithm, today's full feedback task wasn't as too mentally taxing, it had quite a few gotchas that took a while to figure out. Given that the task is full feedback, one would know upon submission that they didn't submit a correct solution and take a while longer than usual to solve what should be an easy problem [taking away precious time to work on more difficult tasks]. That leads on to the other tasks, which had me quite entirely stumped for a long time. Jarrah mentioned how we were going to hate ourselves during the problem session, and for good reason too.
Having collectively discussed the solutions to the problems that had completely confused us only a few hours before, we quickly arrived at an incredibly simple solution to one of harder tasks. Not only was the solution ridiculously simple, but the line of logic that we had to follow was quite obvious once a small observation has been made. Then again, that ability to make the small observations is what differs the good informaticians from the extraordinary informaticians. The other two of the more difficult tasks required less epiphanies and more deep thought and number crunching. This is the kind of deep thought and number crunching that would have the entire team sitting at a table for extended periods of silent meditation that would be interrupted by a magnificent eruption of discussion, shortly followed by further silence. In the end, we came up with an algorithm for solving one of the two unsolved tasks (albeit deeply confusing and lacking an elegant proof) and a questionable solution to the last one (questionable in that it makes sense and should be algorithmically correct, but implementation-wise is a little half-baked).
After the extended problem session (which [since I haven't explained it anywhere else yet] is a session where we all sit down and discuss ideas and potential solutions to problems that were in the day's exam [or any exam for that matter]), we went down to the labs for a shortened lab session (which is where we implement/code the solutions that we discussed in the problem session), where I managed to code up the solution to the task that required an epiphany. I had a stab at the deeply confusing task, but didn't have enough time to finish ironing out the errors.
Butter chicken for dinner (and kebab for lunch). Good stuff with rice. Table conversation was good; we talked about topics such as the ISSC (International Schools' Software Competition), binary search, the expected number of rolls of a dice required to get a number that isn't 6, and whether or not it was possible to make a proper random number generator (i.e. one that has a perfectly equal chance of getting each of its possible values), given a random number generator that gives random numbers of a different range (so something like "given a perfectly random die, create a series of steps that utilises the die to generate a random number between 1 and 5 inclusive" [a la the previously mentioned topic). Truly riveting material.
After dinner, we went back into our rooms, with everyone going to sleep much earlier than usual. Since the Internet connection was offline during this time (which probably explains the early sleeping times), I didn't have a chance to write up this blog post at the time. Instead I thought it would be fun to implement that solution to the minesweeper problem that I so fondly proclaimed in my last post. By the time it was 1am, I had gotten so irritatingly close to a completed solution, but stopped when I realised I was keeping Evgeny awake with the light, loud typing and the TV that I had on for background entertainment so I put it off till a later time.
So as far as I can remember, that was all that happened yesterday. With regards to this particular post, I have a strong feeling that I was being heavily distracted earlier on in the post by a TV, so much of it may not make as much (or any) sense. I'd proofread it, but it probably makes a more interesting read for everyone if I don't.
Flying soon.
-ken
Finally managed to wake up at the planned time of 7:10 today. The hope is that I'd be able to wake myself up properly and get breakfast finished before at least one other person so I stop being the reason we go to the labs late. After having seen everyone else regularly buy the pancakes and appear to enjoy them, I tried the same. Unfortunately, I was wise enough to try and spend precisely $25, I ordered fried eggs too and couldn't finish it in a reasonable amount of time, holding back everyone and yet again being the reason we got to the labs late.
Yet another practice paper (the third, if my counting ability doesn't fail me). In my opinion, this exam was harder than yesterday's, not only because I didn't do terribly well, but also because trying to understand the solutions to two of the three harder problems takes a fair while longer than yesterday's exam. The full feedback problem was certainly more difficult than the usual full feedback problems that I've grown used to. Most of the time, the full feedback problem requires some reasonably trivial algorithm to be implemented, not needing too much thought to go into arriving at an algorithm that solves the task (since feedback is usually to assist competitors produce codes with less errors, rather than assist competitors in solving the task on an algorithmic level). Though in terms of the algorithm, today's full feedback task wasn't as too mentally taxing, it had quite a few gotchas that took a while to figure out. Given that the task is full feedback, one would know upon submission that they didn't submit a correct solution and take a while longer than usual to solve what should be an easy problem [taking away precious time to work on more difficult tasks]. That leads on to the other tasks, which had me quite entirely stumped for a long time. Jarrah mentioned how we were going to hate ourselves during the problem session, and for good reason too.
Having collectively discussed the solutions to the problems that had completely confused us only a few hours before, we quickly arrived at an incredibly simple solution to one of harder tasks. Not only was the solution ridiculously simple, but the line of logic that we had to follow was quite obvious once a small observation has been made. Then again, that ability to make the small observations is what differs the good informaticians from the extraordinary informaticians. The other two of the more difficult tasks required less epiphanies and more deep thought and number crunching. This is the kind of deep thought and number crunching that would have the entire team sitting at a table for extended periods of silent meditation that would be interrupted by a magnificent eruption of discussion, shortly followed by further silence. In the end, we came up with an algorithm for solving one of the two unsolved tasks (albeit deeply confusing and lacking an elegant proof) and a questionable solution to the last one (questionable in that it makes sense and should be algorithmically correct, but implementation-wise is a little half-baked).
After the extended problem session (which [since I haven't explained it anywhere else yet] is a session where we all sit down and discuss ideas and potential solutions to problems that were in the day's exam [or any exam for that matter]), we went down to the labs for a shortened lab session (which is where we implement/code the solutions that we discussed in the problem session), where I managed to code up the solution to the task that required an epiphany. I had a stab at the deeply confusing task, but didn't have enough time to finish ironing out the errors.
Butter chicken for dinner (and kebab for lunch). Good stuff with rice. Table conversation was good; we talked about topics such as the ISSC (International Schools' Software Competition), binary search, the expected number of rolls of a dice required to get a number that isn't 6, and whether or not it was possible to make a proper random number generator (i.e. one that has a perfectly equal chance of getting each of its possible values), given a random number generator that gives random numbers of a different range (so something like "given a perfectly random die, create a series of steps that utilises the die to generate a random number between 1 and 5 inclusive" [a la the previously mentioned topic). Truly riveting material.
After dinner, we went back into our rooms, with everyone going to sleep much earlier than usual. Since the Internet connection was offline during this time (which probably explains the early sleeping times), I didn't have a chance to write up this blog post at the time. Instead I thought it would be fun to implement that solution to the minesweeper problem that I so fondly proclaimed in my last post. By the time it was 1am, I had gotten so irritatingly close to a completed solution, but stopped when I realised I was keeping Evgeny awake with the light, loud typing and the TV that I had on for background entertainment so I put it off till a later time.
So as far as I can remember, that was all that happened yesterday. With regards to this particular post, I have a strong feeling that I was being heavily distracted earlier on in the post by a TV, so much of it may not make as much (or any) sense. I'd proofread it, but it probably makes a more interesting read for everyone if I don't.
Flying soon.
-ken
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