Tuesday 30 October 2018

Trinity Students Win National Programming Contest

Source: Trinity College Cambridge News

TRINITY STUDENTS WIN NATIONAL PROGRAMMING CONTEST

Teams of Trinity Computer Science and Maths students scooped first, second and third place in the UK/IE Programming Contest out of over 150 teams from across the UK and Ireland.
The annual competition – held at several UK and Irish universities – aims to help universities select teams to attend the Northwestern Europe Programming Contest later this autumn. These competitions are designed to test students’ programming skills, problem solving and team work.
Each team comprises three students who try to solve as many problems as possible from a given problem set, using one computer.
Trinity Fellow, Professor Frank Stajano, said:
This was an amazing result. Out of all the 150+ undergraduate teams that took part, the top four places went to Cambridge and, of these, the best three teams in UK and Ireland are from Trinity!
In first place was the Triniceratops team, with Kacper Walentynowicz, Paweł Burzyński and Mariusz Trela.
In second place, team Treenity, with David Wärn, Jeck Lim and Zoltán Molnár Sáska.
In third place, team Me[♠]talci, with Dimitrije Erdeljan, Dušan Živanović and Vladimir Milenković.


Trinity teams hard at work during the contest

Kacper Walentynowicz, who captained Triniceratops, said it was a ‘one-of-its-kind experience to wake up as UK and Ireland Programming Contest Champion.’
Such competitions are normally very stressful, said Kacper.  ‘There are millions of things that can possibly go wrong during the competition and they usually prevent you from just having fun. However, this time everything went so smoothly for us that we didn’t feel uncomfortable at all (maaaybe at the very beginning only).’
Kacper and his peers – the Triniceratops team was Polish – have taken part in programming competitions before and found that it’s not all about winning.
It is not success that motivates you to push yourself but the pleasure of solving interesting challenges and stretching your brain.
That was also true this time – winning is cool, but if it was just about winning, I wouldn’t delve into programming. It’s just fun from the beginning till the end.
Other Trinity computer science students who took part, did well, said Professor Stajano, who founded the Inter-ACE and Cambridge2Cambridge cyber security competitions, the latter in collaboration with MIT.
‘Cambridge has always been a worthy force in competitive programming, but such strong performance from a single College has never been seen before. In particular, Triniceratops should be highly commended for achieving a full score – 12 out of 12 problems solved,’ he said.Trinity PhD student, Petar Veličković, a former competitor-turned-organiser, said that hosting the Cambridge site for the competition this year was challenging but very rewarding.
I am hopeful that our teams will repeat this outstanding performance at the Northwestern Europe regionals, which would qualify an all-Trinity team for the ACM-ICPC World Finals for a second year in a row.’
~~~
Update:
2018 UK & Ireland Programming Contest Results

Saturday 20 October 2018

SIMO Senior Team 2018/2019

SIMO Senior Team 2018/2019 (39)

NUS High (17)
Edden Chew Keyn-Hantz, Y1
Jamie Lim Jia Sin, Y1
Mario Tanijaya, Y1
Oh Zhi Yuan, Y1
Chek Ze Chan, Y2
Dylon Wong Yee Kin, Y2
Lim Jin Tao, Y2
Shen Xing Yang, Y2
Shevonne Chia, Y2
Tan Si Jie, Y2
Tan Yun Hui, Y2
Toh Jing En Daniel, Y2
Wong Yin Leng Angelina, Y2
Krishnan Akash, Y2
Gabriel Tan Jiaxu, Y3
Chieu Le Heng, Y3
Jovan Liau Yi Jun, Y4

RI (12)
Andrew Yar Kwok Wing, Y1
Liu Zihan, Y1
Su Zixuan, Y1
Lai Peng Chong, Y2
Rahul Kumar Singh, Y2
Timothy Foo Qi Wen, Y2
Ye Xintai, Y2
Li Hantao, Y3
Wang Yunrui, Y3
Wang Yuxuan, Y3
Chen Lei Yu, Y4
Han Jiatao Jerry, Y4

HCI (4)
Koh Shao Bing, Y3
Sean Tan Liyu, Y3
Guan Yangchen, Y4
Wang Yuhan, Y4

RGS (3)
Yu Hanzhang, Y1
Zhang Chenxi, Y1
Hu Xinghui, Y2

ACS(I) (2)
Goh Min Kai Kenneth, Y2
Low Yew Keng Timothy, Y2

NYGH (1)
Wu Xinyue, Y1

Training for SIMO Senior Team starts on 20th October 2018 (Saturday).

SIMO National Team 2018/2019

SIMO National Team 2018/2019 (29)

RI (15)
Lucas Boo, Y3
Low Choo Ray, Y3
Etienne Ong Ee Shua, Y3
David Toh Hui Kai, Y4
Ethan Goh Chee Kiat, Y4
Leong Eu-Shaun, Y4
Aloysius Ng Yangyi, Y4
Shen Xinyi, Y4
Tan Wee Kean, Y4
Tan Xu Chen, Y4
Zhang Yu Chi, Y4
Cheng Puhua, Y5
Khor Jun Wei, Y5
Li Chenxu, Y5
Liu Siyong, Y5

HCI (7)
Benson Lin Zhan Li, Y4
Timothy Loh Yan Xun, Y4
Ng Yu Peng, Y5
Shi Cheng, Y5
Sun Longxuan, Y5
Teow Hua Jun, Y5
Yang Yue, Y5

NUS High (5)
Timothy Ho Li Xiong, Y4
Li Yuelin, Y5
Joel Tan Junyao, Y5
Daniel Leong Zhi Ming, Y5
Zhang Xiaorui, Y5

RGS (1)
Chen Xinyi, Y4

ACSI (1)
Ang Boon Han Nathaniel, Y4

Training for SIMO National Team starts on 20th October 2018 (Saturday). The trainers are Sheldon Kieren Tan, Glen Lim and Liu Yijia.

Saturday 13 October 2018

Simon Marais Mathematics Competition 2018


Simon Marais Mathematics Competition is a competition for undergraduates in the Asia-Pacific region; it is inspired by the ​William Lowell Putnam Mathematical Competition.

Who was Simon Marais?​
Dr Simon Marais was a South African-born physicist who became a prominent contrarian asset manager in South Africa and later Australia. He maintained a life-long passionate interest in mathematics and mathematical problem solving after completing a Ph.D. in Theoretical Physics at Cambridge University in 1991. Dr Marais passed away on 26 February 2015, after battling metastatic cancer that had been discovered five months earlier. ​

Competition Date: 13 October 2018 (Saturday)

The prizes are attractive, with cash about AUD100,000 in total, and additional corporate prizes & internship opportunities available to some entrants.

Individual prizes:
First: A$5,000
Second: A$3,500
Third: A$1,500
Fourth to Tenth: A$1,000 each

Pairs prizes:
First: A$10,000
Second: A$7,000
Third: A$3,000
Fourth to Tenth: A$2,000 each

University prizes:
First: A$20,000
Second: A$15,000
Third: A$10,000

​Australia-wide prizes:
Best individual entry: A$1,500
Best pairs entry: A$3,000

Last year, 530+ students from 33 Universities participated in the inaugural Simon Marais Mathematics Competition. Quite a number of top prizes were won by undergraduate students from NUS and NTU. The winners are found here, and the problems and solutions here.

CodeChef SnackDown 2019


SnackDown is a global programming event hosted by CodeChef that invites teams from all over the world to take part in India’s most prestigious multi round programming competition.

Schedule for SnackDown 2019:
12 - 16 Oct 2018 - Online Qualifier: Teams of two solving at least one problem will advance to online round
19 - 21 Oct 2018 - Online Round-1A. Top 1500 teams will qualify for the pre-elimination round.
28 - 29 Oct 2018 - Online Round-1B. Top 1500 teams will qualify for the pre-elimination round. Teams who qualify in round A can't take part in round B
3 Nov 2018 - Online Pre-Elimination. Top 580 teams will advance to the Elimination round.
8 Dec 2018 - Online Elimination. Top 25 global, top 25 Indian + 8 additional teams will be invited for the onsite finale.
2nd Week Feb 2019 - Onsite Finale. Onsite Finalists will be competing for the Ultimate SnackDown 2019 Champion Title!

Prizes can be found here

SnackDown 2017 results are here.