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Algo Room 2 Announcements

Posted May 13th 2008 3:10PM by Denis Horgan

TC Channel: Algo Tuesday

Posted May 13th 2008 1:09PM by Denis Horgan

Tuesday - 9am - Algo Semi 1

Posted May 13th 2008 12:07PM by mystic_tc

With 15min left in the first semi-final, things are kind of interesting. ACRush has had all 3 problems solved for the last 10-15 minutes now, the only competitor to do so yet, while last year's winner Jan_Kuipers sits in second with the easy and hard submitted.

At this point, about 1/2 the competitors have submitted 2 problems. And the only people with no submisions are xhl_kogitsune, who has been focusing on the 1000 since the beginning, and tomek. tomek also started on the 1000 for a long time. A few minutes ago he opened the 500 - and just now he opened the 250 also. Could he really be on the way out?

Algorithm Room 1

Posted May 13th 2008 12:00PM by Denis Horgan

Video of the announcements for Algorithm semifinal room 1..

Monday

Posted May 13th 2008 12:34AM by jmpld40

Day one of competition has commenced! It was great to open up the doors of the competition arena this morning and have competitors in to look around and compete for the first time at this event. More and more finalists found their way to Vegas today as well ,so as the day went on, the arena got more and more packed with people.

I just got back from the welcome reception where people were hanging out and getting know each other a bit. The food was pretty good and we're happy that most of the finalists have checked in by now. One competitor finally made it in, as jwlms mentioned below, mahestro. His smile was priceless with his first visit to the US and Las Vegas. I'm curious what other competitors think of Vegas. It certainly is a crazy place and not a typical American city for sure.

I met up with tomek and at once he challenged me to a game of Wii. tomek always gets me to play these crazy games. At the TCCC06 it was DDR (but the only reason he forced me to play was because I forced him to sing Karaoke with me) , at the TCHS finals in 2007 he was at Purdue and talked me into Percussion Master. I have to admit he kicked my butt at DDR but I was pretty good at Percussion Master. I'm not so sure how well I'll do against him at Wii so I may have to sharpen my skills before the match begins. Especially since I always brag that I'm so good and there is no way he'll win.

I ran into a few other guys today and was happy to get my big hug. hefeng was thrilled to see me and he is so sweet. My buddy Petr was there this morning bright and early ready to get the day going. And of course, my favorite Romanians: adic and Luca. I ran into AleaActaEst and argolite before the design contest and they were ready to get going.

One other thing that is pretty awesome is the competitors that competed in the 2007 or 2008 TCHS finals and how they are now qualifying for the TCO finals. They are so young and have come such a long way. It's great to have them onsite competing against some of the greats.

I feel like such a dork but these events are starting to feel like family reunions. We have the same photographers that we've been working with since 2004, Sue and Larry from Pro Photo, the same great competitors that make it year after year to the finals, a few dedicated sponsors, like NSA that have been to every event I've been to. And of course the TopCoder staff that I don't get to see on a daily basis in the office like jwlms, dok, pulky, OlexiyO and so many others. Even though these events are physically and mentally draining for me in every which way as I try to make them as perfect as I can, I love coming to them and seeing the TopCoder family.

TC Channel: End of Day 1

Posted May 13th 2008 12:10AM by Denis Horgan

Sarah wraps up the action in Day 1 and talks with Component Design contest coordinator Greg Eldridge.

How to build an arena

Posted May 12th 2008 10:15PM by ntrefz

Take a look at this time lapse video of the 3 days prior to the TCO:

Studio Round One Recap

Posted May 12th 2008 9:41PM by jwlms

It was sink or swim time for the Studio finalists this morning. After a speedy breakfast, they were ushered into the arena where I ran them through the rules and set them on their way. We had a few technical difficulties, but all in all, the 3-hour round went well. You can see the final designs on the Studio website here. Unfortunately, mahestro was not able to compete in this round due to a flight problem. The good news? I just ran into him a few minutes ago in the arena! I'm so glad he made it for the final two rounds.

It's time to go to the Welcome Reception now, where the competitors will learn which sponsor project they will be designing for during the sponsor raffle.

Monday Afternoon - Marathon & Design

Posted May 12th 2008 9:23PM by d000hg

Mid-afternoon, and two groups of very busy looking people are hard at work on the main stages. In the marathon match, competitors are nearing the end of their time to steer a car around a randomly generated dirt track. Some of the top submissions are looking good; it seems less likely Lars will trounce them all this time, as he did last year! It's hard to really gauge who's algorithms are best, since one mistake on any test case makes a huge difference.

Scores at 4:10pm. But Psyho is rumored to have something big on the way...

The marathon finalists take lunch. One of them seems to have a box on their head...

On the component design side, competitors are around half-way through. They have to design a component used to calculate relative "distances" between different TC members, where "distance" can be based on geographic location, rating differences... and any other measurements designers might want to add in search of valuable enhancement points. Despite not having any way of importing code into the TCUML tool (the preferred system of several finalists), designs are showing a lot of promise this early on. On a small component like this, will AleaActaEst live up to his boast of completing a design in 4 hours and leave early?!

Wendell reads the component requirement spec...

Software design is thirsty work...

TC Channel - Marathon Match Update

Posted May 12th 2008 6:41PM by Denis Horgan

Sarah talks with Lars Backstrom about the Marathon Match final round currently underway and takes a look at the visualizer for the problem.

Component Design Finals Begin

Posted May 12th 2008 3:35PM by Denis Horgan

The final round of the Component Design competition is underway in Las Vegas. Here's video of the finalists being announced.

As Sarah mentioned earlier, Studio, Component Design & Dev are all working on one application as the subject of the TCO finals. We'll demo it here in Vegas on Thursday when we announce the winners, and it will be up on TopCoder.com for all of you to play with shortly thereafter.

In the meantime, here's a preview -- the submissions from today's Studio round, the GUI for the app.

Earthquake in China

Posted May 12th 2008 2:25PM by Denis Horgan

As Sarah mentioned in her TC Channel report, there was a massive earthquake in Sichuan province of Central China today. None of the members here in Las Vegas are from the area, but TopCoder's Vice President of China Operations, Yingying Wu is from the effected region and sent us an email to let us know she is ok. Yingying gave us permission to post her email here.

Hi Dave, yes it is. Thank you so much, love you. All my families are evacuated to the open air. No one got injured.

I was on airplane from Guangzhou to Xi'an when the earthquake occurred at 2:30PM. Guangzhou is the competition center for Guangdong Provincial contest and Xi'an the one of the centers for West China competition.

During the flight, the crew announced that because the Xi'an airport is full of planes which could not land southwest China due to the earthquake there. I start crying because all my families are in southwest China and I worried about them so much. We land in Guilin airport which is 1300 kilometers away from Xi'an. I called my friends and get to know the earthquake happened in Sichuan, a small town right next to my hometown Chengdu.

I started to call all of my family members, through landline and mobile, but no phone call could get through. This is the hardest time during my life, i'd like to trade everything to make any of them ok.

6 hours later, the plane flight back to Xi'an and i get to know my family members are safe one by one, till last one confirmed safety about half an hour ago.

Thanks so much for your care. Right now I am staying with west China organizer, student representative from Sichuan University. The wall for the hotel room broke apart and i still feel the land swing. Students in Xi'an are evacuated as well, lecture for today canceled but we will meet two deans for department of CS in best two universities in Xi'an tomorrow, and we will see what will going on.

Bless,
Yingying Wu

Our thoughts are with all our members who ive in the region or who have family there. If you'd like to discuss this, there's a forum thread here.

TC Channel - Marathon & Studio Day 1

Posted May 12th 2008 1:37PM by Denis Horgan

The Marathon Match finalists gather for a group photo before the round.

In Vegas

Posted May 12th 2008 12:28PM by d000hg

I arrived to Vegas mid-afternoon yesterday, after a short hop from LA, which gave me a great chance to stare at the most impresive desert landscape... canyons, salt plains, and so on. Then Vegas itself came into view and almost immediately the huge casino hotels stood out. My driver from the airport said a newly opened hotel is now the largest in the world, with an incredible 8000+ rooms, at a cost well into billions of dollars.

The first day here was quite low-key. I registered at the TC desk, picked up a goody bag and bumped into Rustyoldman watching the poker, before taking a walk through to dinner... which turned out to be practically deserted, perhaps because the algorithm guys don't compete until Tuesday.

TC had provided a big stack of games, the most popular was a kind of magnetic version of Lego. I spent a while at a table with Jan_Kuipers, paranoia, Rustyoldman and a couple of others whose names escape me right now. Most people used the toy to work on a geometrical problem posed by Rustyoldman: "given an infinite number of unit squares and unit equilateral triangles, how many different 2D convex polygons can be constructed?" Meanwhile, one guy decided it would be more fun to construct a Bucky Ball... you can see the best attempt below.

After that, a few guys ventured into the bar/casino area. But they seemed outnumbered by TC staff and TCO sponsors. Rustyoldman tried his hand at poker, but jet lag forced most to bed at a reasonable hour.

Right now, the Studio and Marathon contests are under way... more on that later.

Marathon Match Final Begins

Posted May 12th 2008 12:27PM by Denis Horgan

The Marathon Match finalists gather for a group photo before the round.

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