TCO17 Marathon Round 3: Time To Apply Your Skills

Time has passed and the rest phase after the Round 2 of TCO Marathon track has ended. Now the Topcoder members with the best endurance have gathered to show their skills in the 3rd and final qualification round this year.

The Task

The task for this round is stated as simple as to separate poisoned wine bottles from clean ones, by using a limited amount of test strips. This simple statement is enough to catch one’s attention, however, some difficulties may appear once you start the real problem solving.
As usual, pay attention to constraints (both for input parameters and runtime/memory limits).
A full problem statement is available here.

The participants

There are 40 Topcoder members that have participated in all 3 rounds: alpha_virginis, atsT5515, baseballnut, blackmath, CatalinT, Codemage, daisyo, EvbCFfp1XB, gangsterveggies, gorbunov, hakomo, hoshi524, iehn, ika, iwashi31, kasuka, kphmd, kurenai3110, marek.cygan, Mojito1, mugurelionut, myam, neetsdkasu, nhzp339, nika, okazaki, Pag2, PaulJefferys, simanman, Softwalker, Stonefeang, suikkee, t-d, Taiyo.., therubiksman, tomerun, wleite, xyz600, ymks7397, yowa.
Out of this list, tomerun and wleite already secured their spots in the finals (assuming not too many points will be distributed during possible lightning rounds).
Do not forget to fix all the bugs in the code, including logical ones.
Good luck and see you in the final standings!