ACM South Pacific Region: Regional Results

2009 Regional Contest Report

2009 Results | 2009 Problem Set

The 2009 ACM South Pacific Programming Contest sponsored by IBM was held on Saturday 12th September at 9 sites across Australia and New Zealand. 76 teams competed for the chance to represent their country in Harbin, China next year.

We continue to appreciate the sponsorship of IBM who provide t-shirts and gifts to the teams, and the support of ACM who make the event possible.

See our results page for the top 10.

From Raewyn Boersen, ACM South Pacific Regional Director

Hi Everyone

What a great contest we had this year! The 2009 ACM South Pacific Programming Contest sponsored by IBM was held on Saturday 12th September at 9 sites across Australia and New Zealand.

Congratulations to Luigi Barone and Tim Bell the respective coaches of the Perth team ‘Don Knuth's Lovechild Reunion’ and the Christchurch team, Team JET.
Perth’s students Peter Alexander, Evgeni Sergeev and Alexander Mathews and Christchurch’s Thomas Steinke, Joseph Scarr and Edwin Flores will be representing us in Harbin, China from February 1st-6th.

The Perth team solved 8 problems in 1185 minutes and the Christchurch team 7 in 1026 minutes. A great result.
One of the advantages of being the first regional contest of the year is that is gives our teams the maximum time to practice! So, go to it guys. I am sure that they will do us proud and I know you will join with me in wishing them well.

An event such as ours is not possible without serious support. Thanks and appreciation to:

The wonderful support and sponsorship from IBM who provided medals, T shirts and gifts to the teams. Some sites were visited by IBM staff who told the teams about the possible career opportunities at IBM. To my mind having a sponsor that goes the extra mile like they do, is a sign of a company with great values and one which it would be wonderful to work for.The ACMICPC organization which provides (from afar) the registration system and judging system.
Our judging team headed by Hossam ElGindy.
The site coordinators and the many volunteers at each site.
The technicians, the admin staff, the coaches who acted as judges on the day and all the other volunteers whose contribution allowed our teams to have this opportunity.

It is the first year that we have not had teams in either Dunedin or Canberra and this contributed to the drop in the number of team competing (76). In New Zealand, we ran a parallel contest for high school teams and they all acquitted themselves very well. This year we did not have a special set of problems for them, they attempted the same set as the rest of the contestants. Our strategy to provide as much opportunity to compete as possible is beginning to reap rewards.

We had 72 teams solving 1 or more problems, 48 teams solving 2 or more problems and 35 teams solving at least 3 problems. Great results! We obviously have some enthusiastic contestants and some great coaching going on.

We hope you had fun, that you learned a little and that you were challenged enough that you will compete next year and perhaps qualify for that trip to Kuala Lumpur, the proposed site of the 2011 Finals.

Thank you all for providing such a competitive contest.

Site Winners

The top teams and universities at each of the sites:

Site	University	Team Name	Coach	Team Members
Adelaide	Adelaide University	129.127.232.222:9100	Brad Alexander	Lachlan Horne William Jarman Alex Mackay
Auckland	University of Waikato	Arousal	Bill Rogers	Sam Douglas Karl Hendrikse Daniel Tebbutt
Brisbane	University of Queensland	TripleLinkedList	Graeme Smith	Alan Alpert Kevin Wu Won Nicholas Young
Christchurch	University of Canterbury	Team Jet	Tim Bell	Edwin Flores Joseph Scarr Thomas Steinke
Hobart	University of Tasmania	The Triple Helix	Mike Cameron-Jones	Simon Arneaud Josh Deprez Christopher Neugebauer
Melbourne	University of Melbourne	Hi Pat	Bernie Pope	Christopher Chen Victor Lei Angus McInnes
Perth	University of Western Australia	Don Knuth's Lovechild Reunion	Luigi Barone	Peter Alexander Alexander Mathews Evgeni Sergeev
Sydney	University of Sydney	tajabe	Taso Viglas	James Constable Tarek Elgindy Ben Taylor
Wellington	Victoria University of Wellington	HCM	Alex Potanin	Hugh Davenport Carlton Downey Michael Mudge

Site Reports

Adelaide

Report not yet available.

Auckland from Phil Robbins

We had 10 teams from University of Auckland, 3 from University of Waikato, plus 3 from the hosts AUT University. In addition we had a school team from Hamilton who were competing unofficially. IBM were represented by Eric Leung, Frank Kruchio, Hitesh Patel and Len Thomson. Hitesh welcomed the teams and told them something of what IBM are doing.

We started promptly at 2pm and had a correct submission within 18 minutes. Every team eventually managed to solve at least 1 problem, with our top 7 teams each solving at least 3 problems. Our top teams kept an eye on Team Jet from Christchurch, the team seen as their main rival to be New Zealand's team for China next year. Our winning team, Arousal from University of Waikato, were the top New Zealand team - for about 5 minutes! They solved 6 problems, finishing 1 short of Team Jet's total and took 7th place overall.

After the contest and the traditional pizzas, Raewyn Boersen spoke to the teams about the ACM Contest and gave out the t-shirts and prizes. Frank took photos of the presentation.

Thanks to Steven Miller, Jacqui Whalley and Gordon Grimsey from AUT, to Michael Dinneen and Radu Nicolsecu from University of Auckland and to Bill Rogers and Perry Lorier from University of Waikato for their help in setting up and running the contest, as well as to the IBM team and Raewyn mentioned above.

Brisbane from Malcolm Corney

We had 12 teams in Brisbane this year with one team from University of Queensland, three teams from Griffith University and eight teams from QUT.

Judging on the day were Andrew Rock and Chris de Vries. Neil Muspratt provided help on the technical side and there were no technical issues on the day. We had operational help from Diane Corney, Sriram Raghavan, Sajal Bhatia and my kids Tomas and Nyssa. Thanks to all for your efforts.

We started on time at midday and The Brisbane site was won by UQ::TripleLinkedList (Alan Alpert, Kevin Wu Won and Nicholas Young) from University of Queensland with six correct submissions. Second place went to QUT's amaf with another QUT team, The Program Slicers, in third place.

Thanks to the sponsors, the organizers and the head judge for an interesting problem set.

Christchurch from Richard Lobb

Everything ran smoothly at Christchurch this year -- well, ok, as smoothly as can be expected. It was a bit disappointing that we only had the one team here; we'll have to work harder next year to get more teams entering. However, our solitary team, Team JET, put on a truly superb performance, finishing first in New Zealand and second overall, at least on the provisional rankings. Congratulations guys -- a wonderful effort.

Thanks ACM and IBM for the organisation and sponsorship, and particular thanks to all the organizers, judges and problem setters for making the event possible. Also many thanks to Joffre Horlor for providing technical and moral support throughout the contest.

Hobart from Mike Cameron-Jones

Congratulations to Simon Arneaud, Josh Deprez and Christopher Neugebauer for winning the Hobart site and finishing 3rd on the regional scoreboard on the day, as "The Triple Helix". Congratulations also to Andrew Johnson, Thomas Karpiniec and Simon Stannus for finishing in the top third on the day, as "UTas 1". Well done too to Nick Ham, Alex McKeown and James McHugh, for finishing in the middle third on the day, as "UTas B", a good performance for a team all of whom were in their first regional 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

This year the Melbourne Site had only three teams, all from Melbourne University. This is the lowest number of teams we've had for a long time. We started on time and the contest ran smoothly (which is fortunate because PC^2 was proving unstable the night before). Everyone enjoyed the event and our teams performed well. Congratulations to team "Hi Pat" who placed first at the site, and fourth overall.

Many thanks to the competition organisers, especially Hossam as head judge. Thanks also to Wilan Wong who helped out with the administration on the day.

Perth.from Luigi Barone

For the sixth year running, The University of Western Australia hosted the Perth site of the South Pacific Programming Contest. Ten 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 South Pacific region against each other.

Starting at a blistering pace (five teams submitting their first solution within 30 minutes), the competition was intense for the full five hours as the teams worked their way through what was generally agreed to be an interesting, well balanced, and challenging problem set. There was a constant stream of submissions (97 in total at a success rate of 40%), ensuring the judges were kept busy for the entire event. Indeed, by the end, contestants and staff alike were thoroughly drained and exhausted.

Congratulations go to the winners Peter Alexander, Alexander Mathews, and Evgeni Sergeev from team "Don Knuth's Lovechild Reunion" for taking out the Perth competition, besting strong competition from the nine other Western Australian teams. With a regular stream of correct submissions, Peter, Alex, and Evgeni steadily worked their way up the regional scoreboard, assuming the lead with just on 90 minutes to go, ultimately holding on to finish as winners in the region! Congratulations to them on their amazing performance - the first time a team from Western Australian has won the regional competition! And by a clear margin too.

Team "It Compiles, Submit!" managed to complete six questions in the alloted time, placing them second in the local competition, with team "Renegades" claiming the bronze medals with five correct questions. Three teams completed four questions correctly, one team completed three questions, one team completed two questions, with the remaining two teams each completing one question. All-in-all, an impressive effort that saw all Perth-based teams get onto the scoreboard, with six teams finishing in the top 25 in the region.

Problem A proved to the be most popular for the Perth-based teams, with all but one team successfully completing this problem within the alloted five hours. Problems D, F, G, and I proved to be the next most popular problems, with a good proportion of teams completing these problems, albeit typically only after a few unsuccessful submissions (indeed, no team successfully completed problem I on their first attempt). At the other end of the spectrum, only one Perth team successfully completed problems E and H, and no team successfully completed problem C. The "easy" problem B also seemed deceptively challenging for the Perth teams, with over half the teams failing to submit a correct solution to this problem.

All-in-all, the event ran very 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), Tim French and Lyndon While (judges), Nicola Hallsworth and Ilse Ilse Lorenzen (administrative assistance), and Lucas Bradstreet, Peter Dreisiger, and Joe Sandon (logistical support). Special thanks must also be given to the ACM and IBM for their sponsorship, and to the tireless work of the competition organisers (Raewyn, Phil, and Hossam in particular) for preparing such a great competition.

Bring on the world finals!

Sydney

Report not yet available.

Wellington from Alex Potanin

Wellington site had 4 University teams (3 from VUW and 1 from Massey in Palmerston North) and 2 High School teams (1 from Scots College in Wellington and 1 from Palmerston North Boys High School). The top team solved 5 out of 9 problems and consisted of Hugh Davenport, Carlton Downey, and Michale Mudge. We also had 4 IBM people present during the contest to observe and help out. Photo of our top team hard at work.

[Top of page]

Site Created By: Nick Meek
Site Maintained By:Phil Robbins
Last Updated: December 2004