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2010 Regional Contest Report |
| Site | University | Team Name | Coach | Team Members |
| Adelaide | University of Adelaide | Unladen Swallows | Brad Alexander | Thomas David Dana Rapagna and Ian Grunert |
| Auckland | University of Auckland | Variance-Weighted Fusion | Michael Dinneen | Ronald Chan Tapio Saarinen and Ralph Versteegen |
| Brisbane | Queensland University of Technology | R & D | Malcolm Corney | Rachel Guelen, Andres Galvis and Thanh Dat Nguyen |
| Christchurch | University of Canterbury | Chimera | Richard Lobb | Stephen Fitchett |
| Hobart | University of Tasmania | UTas A | Mike Cameron-Jones | Andrew Haigh, Hoang Vinh Tran and Aidan O'Mara |
| Melbourne | RMIT University | RMIT Rookies | Mohammad Omidvar | Nguyen Van Thoai, Weidong Bian and Dinh Van Thao |
| Perth | University of Western Australia | The Fist of Turing | Luigi Barone | James Hales, Conrad Pogson, and Aedan Pope |
| Sydney | University of New South Wales | Macrohard | Tim Lambert | Jarrah Lacko |
| Wellington | Victoria University of Wellington | DJ Tomato | Alex Potanin | Roma Klapaukh |
Site Reports
Adelaide from Paul Calder
This year we had 15 official teams competing (plus one or two unofficial ones), which is down a little from our record but still healthy. And for the first time ever, it was great to be able to host a high school team. Next year, we're hoping to have more high school teams; look out university teams!
We got underway more or less on time, and from the time the first correct solution came in (11 minutes) until the final bell, the judges (thanks, Brad and Joseph) were busy with a stready stream of runs while the technical staff (thanks Yang) kept the wheels turning. We had one or two issues with PC2 -- we were running version 9.1.5 -- but in the main everything went smoothly.
At the end, one official team was the clear winner, with 5 problems solved in a total of 723 minutes. Congratulations to "Unladen Swallows" Thomas David, Dana Rapagna, and Ian Grunert, who were coached by Brad Alexander. Once again, Adelaide University takes home the coverted Golden Ukulele.
Second and third place this year (each solving 4 problems) went to Flinders University teams, so look out Adelaide next year! And it was great to see that our team from the Australian Science and Maths School also did well, with 3 problems solved in a total of 474 mintues. A good sign for the health of future competitions!
Speaking of the future, the 2011 Adelaide Site will be hosted by Adelaide University (we rotate between the 3 South Australian universities). We look forward to another enjoyable contest next year.
Auckland from Jacqui Whalley
Kia ora! It was a very rainy cold day in Tāmaki (Auckland)
for the South Pacific Regionals, but the teams turned out
in force. The Waikato teams made the usual long early
morning drive up to Auckland to participate and as always
provided a welcome addition to the Auckland site. The
judges were kept busy from the start as submissions came in
with the first correct solutions submitted in the first 30
minutes of the contest!
The top team at Auckland was Variance-Weighted Fusion from
University of Auckland (Ronald Chan, Tapio Saarinen and Ralph
Versteegen, coached by Michael Dinneen). Congratulations!
A special thanks goes to the
- Site Judges Michael Dinneen and Bill Rogers
- IBM volunteers; Len Thomson, John Sexton, David Huang, Jonathan Choi, Isuru Fernando and Amal Shawani
- Technical Director & Contest Manager, Phil Robbins
Brisbane from Malcolm Corney
Brisbane had six teams for the competition this year with representatives from Bond University, Griffith University and Queensland University of Technology. Judging on the day we had some past competitors in Kevin Wu Won and Eric Springer. My thanks to both of you for your help.
Diane Corney headed up the operations team with help from four volunteers from IBM - Guy Redding, David Bishop, Candice Ong and Stephen Viselli - and from Nyssa and Tomas. Many thanks for you efforts on the day in keeping the competitors fed.
The Brisbane site was won this year by R & D (Rachel Guelen, Andres Galvis and Thanh Dat Nguyen) with five correct submissions. Bond University finished close behind with four correct submissions and QUT3 took third place, also with four correct submission. R & D made a successful submission with 5 minutes to take the lead and win the Brisbane competition.
Many thanks to IBM for sponsorhip, T-shirts and goody bags, to the regional organizers and to the head judge for an interesting problem set.
Christchurch from Richard Lobb
fThis year's contest was somewhat more traumatic than usual in Christchurch, due to the magnitude 7.1 earthquake one week before. The University was still in a security lock-down, making the usual Computer Science programming laboratories unavailable to us. Fortunately we were able to get the ear of Vice-Chancellor the morning before the contest. He snapped his fingers and various security obstacles magically disappeared, resulting in our being allowed access to the National ICT Innovation Centre, which was being used as the earthquake recovery headquarters. Our tech support staff transported half a dozen machines from our computing laboratories to the upstairs student area, where we built an impromptu lab. A couple of personal laptops were wheeled into service as PC^2 server and judge.
We had two university teams and three high school teams competing. I made the mistake of running all five teams off the same server, which caused problems for the scoreboard-merging software due to the two extra high-school problems. Sorry about that folks, although under the circumstances I felt that even running one server was a success story. My apologies to anyone I snarled at on the chat server in the heat of the moment(s).
The contest itself was pretty frantic but we survived. Congratulations to team Chimera, who finished up to the top New Zealand team and to team BurnsideUnlimitedChristchurch which I understand came top of the High School league. My sincere thanks to Peter Glassenbury for looking after the technical side of things, persuading our machines to run in the new environment despite all their objections, and Jenny Harlow for helping with everything from organising lunches to assisting with the judging. Heartfelt thanks to Raewyn, Phil, Hossam and the rest of the team for organising the event -- we do realise what a huge effort it is putting a contest like this together, making our stresses in running a small site look quite puny in comparison.
Hobart from Mike Cameron-Jones
Congratulations to Andrew Haigh, Hoang Vinh Tran and Aidan O'Mara for winning the Hobart site and finishing 3rd on the regional scoreboard on the day, as "UTas A". This is an outstanding performance for a team competing in the South Pacific Regional for the first time. 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), Christian McGee (Technician) and Julia Mollison (Travel and Food Organiser).
Melbourne from from Xiaodong Li
On Saturday 11 September, 2010, the School of Computer Science and IT (RMIT University) hosted the ACM South Pacific Regional Programming Contest (Melbourne Site). It was great to see that the two RMIT teams - RMIT Rookies solved 4 out of 9 problems, and RMIT HappyBunch solved 2.
RMIT Rookies - Nguyen Van Thoai, Mohammad Omidvar (coach), Weidong Bian, and Dinh Van Thao
RMIT HappyBunch - Chris Hanlson, Christopher Hoobin (coach), Mark Gruzauskas, and Wayne Madden
This is a much better than expected result, considering that the 2 teams (3 students each) had little or almost no time of training for the contest. More information (and photos) can be found from the school website.
There were 57 teams participated. RMIT Rookies ranked 26, and HappyBunch on 44. We had a lot of help from various people in setting things up. Mirka, Tin, and Matt were great help from ITS. Geoff, George, and Adriana for their advice and moral support from the school. Mohammad and Chris did so much for the club and as coaches/judges for this contest. Shenlu Wang and Ke Sun also helped as student volunteers... We'd like to thank them all! We'd also like to thank Jason and Richard for being here representing our sponsor IBM!
Perth.from Luigi Barone
For the seventh 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 (seven teams submitting their first solution within 20 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 (102 in total at a 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 go to the winners James Hales, Conrad Pogson, and Aedan Pope from team "The Fist of Turing" for taking out the Perth competition, besting strong competition from the nine other Western Australian teams, finishing as provisional runners-up in the region. Alas though, for the second time in six years, a Perth-based team finished second in the region and will (probably) not get to attend the world finals. Disappointing!
Team "Unsigned Intelligence" also managed to complete seven questions in the alloted time, placing them second in the local competition, with team "Not Made in China" claiming the bronze medals with six correct questions. Two teams finished with five correct questions, three teams with three correct, and the remaining two Perth-based team completed two questions. All-in-all, an impressive effort that saw all Perth-based teams get onto the scoreboard, with five teams finishing in the top 20 in the region.
All-in-all, dispite a major server problem just before the competition started, the event ran reasonably 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 Annie Walker
(administrative assistance), and Isaac French, Evgeni Sergeev
and Mark Wittkamp (logistical support). Thanks also to Anna
Waghorn from IBM Perth who came and oversaw the competition
and helped with the balloons. 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.
No report yet.
Wellington from Alex Potanin
On Saturday, the 11th of September, 2010, School of Engineering and Computer Science hosted the Wellington Site for the regional qualification round of the world's oldest and most prestigious programming competition: The ACM International Collegiate Programming Contest. Victoria was represented by 4 teams of three students each. Four hours into a five hour battle, a Victoria team called DJ Tomato (Roma Klapaukh, Joshua Baker, and Daniel Atkins) was leading New Zealand with 5 out of 9 problems but the shortest time taken to solve them. Unfortunately, in the last minutes of the competition, a Christchurch team and two Auckland teams solved an additional problem each to edge DJ Tomato into a 4th place in New Zealand and 11th place in the South Pacific region overall. The other Victoria teams: Bunny on a Turtle (Victoria Ozorio, Amy Chard, Michael Homer), WUV (Carlton Downey, Michael Mudge, Hugh Davenport), Last Minute Entry 1 (Jiaen Xie and Ben Russell), and Bobby Tables (Simon Welsh, Chris Hall, and Melby Ruarus) came 6th, 7th, 10th and 13th in New Zealand respectively. A total of 16 teams from New Zealand took part and a total of 59 teams took part in the South Pacific region this year.
At the same time, a special High School site was hosted in Wellington, Auckland, and Christchurch with the same problems as the University teams and additional 2 high school level problems. A team called Calcky (Luke March, Cain Edie, and Luke Bravenboer) proudly carried the Paraparaumu College flag at the Wellington Site and solved 3 problems – coming safely in the top half of NZ-based high school teams and beating some of the University teams while at it! At least two of Calcky's team members already chose Victoria to continue their University study.
The site was organised and ran by Alex Potanin with a lot of help from Neil Ramsay and Stuart Marshall. We thank the contest's sponsor: IBM. IBM has provided us with prizes and catering during the contest and had 3 current IBM employes (two of which have recently graduated from Victoria) present throughout the event and award prizes at the end. If you have any questions about the ACM Programming Contest or a local Australia and New Zealand Algorithmics and Coding League that holds 6 contests leading up to the regionals throughout the year, please contact Alex Potanin.
Site Created By: Nick
Meek
Site Maintained By:Phil
Robbins
Last Updated: December 2004