Monday, May 30, 2011

ACM ICPC 2011 World Finals - pre-contest

ACM ICPC 2011 World Finals are happening these days in Orlando. Tomorrow, as usual, I will be doing live commentary on the tasks and on the contest itself. Today, about 9 hours before the start of the contest, I write about what happened before the contest - using style borrowed from Mike's notes.

On Friday, we went to see the ocean and the Kennedy Space Center, where most American space launches happen. The space center was very disappointing - it looks like the only reason to go there would be to view an actual launch (and the next launch is in July), that should be very impressive and maybe even educational. What we found there was:

Real-size models of most American rockets, Russian ships and the Shuttle:


Space-themed and not-so-space themed attractions and fountains (really nice in 30C heat):


The ocean is nice and warm, but comes with some jellyfish bites :)

On Saturday, the organizers took us to SeaWorld resort. The resort welcomes you with a traffic jam on the parking entrance:


They started with an IBM history recap given on a stadium where the killer whale show (Shamu) takes place. Not everyone was excited:


Then we were given lots of time to explore SeaWorld, which was quite exciting. The most exciting part was the dolphin show, but I'm yet to download it from the camera, so here goes the still part of SeaWorld:


On Saturday, the Opening Ceremony and two Practice Sessions took place. Here's how the contest area feels:


And here's how the teams look:


Good luck to all teams, and especially to the team in the last picture - and stay tuned for the live commentary tomorrow right in this blog! The contest starts around 9am local time (click the link for other timezones).

6 comments:

  1. А что там так увлеченно команды решают? Был какой-то интересный пробный тур? Или это турнир игровых стратегий?

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  2. Nice coverage, thanks Petr.

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  3. Ishandutta200710 May, 2013 11:37

    Thanks Petr.Anyways I wanted to ask you I thing that is why don't you compete in longer contests like Codechef's Monthly Algorithm Challenge(http://www.codechef.com/JUNE11/)

     

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  4. Generally, because they require more time :) For CodeChef in particular (as far as I understand, it has short contests as well?), I've just never considered competing there. I guess there's a certain set of contests that I usually solve (TopCoder, CodeForces, OpenCup, etc), and it's harder for me to "trust" a new contest site enough to start solving it regularly.

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  5. Пробный тур. Дали вполне нетривиальные задачи :)

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  6. Ishandutta200710 May, 2013 11:37

    Some of the targets like ACRush,tourist,Egor,Tomek have become regular on Codechef(both in short and long contests). Lots of Petr fans like us are looking forward to see Petr there as well(in both the forms).And as far as trust is concerned, you will  only be able to judge if you try experiencing it atleast once.So many targets have started trusting Codechef; why not Petr.:-)

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