Friday, October 9, 2009

ACM National Contest Held By Alexandria University ACM Student Chapter

Today (or practically yesterday as it passed midnight now :D), we had the last activity for this year in our beloved chapter "Alexandria University ACM Student Chapter" as we will start a new year after a week.
As a closure for this year's activities, we held a practice National contest. We invited teams from Egyptian universities and 17 teams of them came today.

We had been preparing for this contest since months, it was delayed few times but we could held it at the last.

It has been a long day with a lot of work. It started at 8:30 am and finished at 8:30 pm. It started by making the last arrangements and the final touches. Teams arrived on the registration hour from 10:00 till 11:00. Then there was a session to make the rules clear and say the needed notifications. Then a coffee break at 11:30 (I missed this one but I made my own coffee break later on the day :D).

At 12:15, we started a practice session in the lab. Its duration was an hour and a half. In this session, contestants are required to solve two problems. The purpose of it is to get used to IDEs they will use in the main contest to avoid problems during the main contest. This was the practice session for the contestants. For me, it was the time to have my own coffee break after I missed the first one .. :)

At 2:30, we started the main contest where each team is given 9 problems to solve in 5 hours. The starting of the contest was when every thing went crazy. We had the first right solved problem after two minutes only from the start and for the next two and half hours, non of us (the organizers) stopped running from the contest lab to the judgment lab answering questions for the contestants, bringing papers they printed or blowing up BALLOONS and sticking one for each right solved problem (I will talk about balloons at the end as it was a special part of the day :D). After half of the time, craziness started to be a bit stable and we could catch our breath for a bit.

The contest finished at 7:30, all teams headed back to the hall where we started the day to announce the results and teams ranks. Our university had three teams competing in the contest, they came in fourth, seventh and twelfth which was a good results.

Now, lets talk about BALLOONS. :D I admit that we had fun with them but they weren't made for our fun. Balloons are a simple way for contestants to know problems solved by each team in the contest. It goes like that. Each problem has a color dedicated to it. Each team submit the right solve for any problem, a balloon with problem's color is stuck on this team's PC. This way a simple look to all PCs around you, you can figure out which problems are most solved.

I know it became a long post but it doesn't end here :D
All the previous was the exact facts and details of the day as it happened. Now here is what I think.
This was one of the best and most important events I had ever organized. It was that important as all the teams are experienced in such contests and each one of them ranked in first places in many previous contests. This is why their opinion really matters for us as it was our first time to organize it.
From what I noticed after the contest and even after the results are knows, I think teams got back home happy and pleased with the whole organization. I think they will like to come again in case we arranged another one.

If I got today's pictures, I will dedicate a special post for these pictures to comment on it as much as I can. We got pictures that worth thousands of words. :D Wait and See.

I know that if I kept talking, I will keep talking about this contest FOREVER. So, the last words will be a "THANK YOU" to everyone helped in this contest to make it as good as was.

2 comments:

  1. BTW, you forgot to talk about the food brought by Mo'men :D

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  2. it was a great day ... I know we get tired at the end of the day >>> but it worth ...:D

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