And the winners are...
05.05.06 9:00 PM


By omgrace
TopCoder Member

What a whirlwind of events it's been! The algorithm competitions have been so fun to watch and today's final algorithm match was no different. Here's a picture of the elite eight:



That's John Dethridge, misof, tomek, andrewzta, cyfra , Petr, natori, and fuwenjie.

Here are some action shots of these guys figuring out the world's problems: John Dethridge , davidyang's favorite, in deep concentration:



andrewzta , a competitor that should have been entered in the best hair contest, solving problem 1:



fuwenjie solving the 500 point problem, which was later challenged by Petr:



tomek, copying my pose from the wildcard tournament:



This challenge round was so intense - Petr successfully completed 3 challenges in the first 30 seconds (okay maybe a little exaggerated). Eventually, people only looked at Petr and fuwenjie's code. Here's a shot of the challenge phase:



And a picture of the spectators watching the challenges:



The finalists for the component development portion:



And the winner is...



SINDU!!!! I think it's particularly great that sindu won because it's also his birthday! What a great way to celebrate - with a $12,500 CHECK! w@h00000!!

The finalists for the component design portion:





And the winner is...



Pops! Congrats!!

The finalists for the algorithm competition:



And the winner is...



Petr! He was also the only one to solve all three problems (amazingly fast, too) AND pass all of the system tests!!

Now the real question is, what are they going to do with all that money?

After the shenanigans of the competitions, I took some pictures with the finalists. Here's one of me, Pops, and davidyang:



We stopped tomek in the elevator to take a picture with him (he's practically a celebrity around here):



Here's the entire group of competitors:



Finally, here are two pictures that some of you have been waiting for:





ME AND MISOF! He's so nice - not only did he let me WEAR his scarf; he also put it on me! Even though he didn't win the algorithm final, misof's a winner in my book!