November 14, 2021 TCO21 First Day Recap
2021 Topcoder Open has officially begun! On our first day of this year’s TCO, we gathered together online for three exciting events: The Official Kickoff and Welcome Event, the Algorithm Semi Final 1 Competition, and the 24 Hour Marathon Match Final Introduction event.
Get in the TCO mood by watching the awesome Hype Video below, and read all about the details of the events, in case you missed them, or just want to reminisce.
Official Kickoff Event
Led by our host Nick, the event was kicked off to a successful start, and we were welcomed to the virtual event by Adam and Jessie. They both had surprises up their sleeve, and Adam announced a $10,000 Hackathon with Velo by Wix which is open for all spectators. All the details will be shared on Wednesday. Jessie on the other hand was throwing Topcoder shirts at her camera and the audience members who “caught” it would win and get themselves a shirt. You just had to be there.
Algorithm Semi Final 1
The algorithm track semi final round 1 was fierce, with many top members competing for their finals placements. Of the competitors, only grumpy_gordon and gs14004 were TCO first-timers, and we saw veterans ecnerwal, tourist, Um_nik and ACRush advancing to the finals. ACRush held first place at the end of the Challenge Phase, but his solution to the 1000-point problem failed System Tests, placing him at position four on the leaderboard, and leaving ecnerwal in the first place. Solving the Easy and Medium problems fast was what made the game here, not a single competitor submitted a passing solution to the Hard problem during the contest.
The final leaderboard for the round is the following:
The exact results after System Tests are shown below.
24 Hour Marathon Match
The 24 Hour Marathon Match started at 14:00 Topcoder time and our finalists set off on developing their solutions to the problem. After the match start, we were given a wonderful introduction to the Marathon Final event and to the problem statement by JacoCronje, KaasanErinn, Gorynich, nofto and birdofpreyru. The problem involved moving a ninja through a rectangular game board (that wraps around at the edges) trying to collect coins while avoiding spikes, with the catch that movement has to be determined through dice rolls, bringing in randomness to the situation. Initial submissions were seen during the live Introduction session, and it will surely be interesting to see the leaderboard evolve during the rest of the match!
You can watch the recording for the open day event, in case you missed it!
See you for the exciting conclusion of the Marathon Final, The Design Final 1 and the QA Final round on Sunday!
Pentti Sunila
Guest Blogger
