TopCoder Competition

9:00 PM - Rock, Paper, Scissors Tournament
9:15 PM - Build Card Bridge
9:45 PM - Help Jimmy "The Lightning" Alberto Steal Diamonds

This looks like an odd (but busy) schedule. Actually, these were the challenges that UGA programmers faced in an algorithm competition Wednesday night. The computer science department and the UGA-ACM (Association for Computing Machines) hosted the algorithm problem-solving competition, which was part of a national college tour by TopCoder.

TopCoder is a website where weekly worldwide competitions are held online. There are also on-site tournaments twice a year. This May, the TopCoder Open is being held in Las Vegas. These are fun, time-based programming competitions. TopCoder recommends top competitors to software employers. TopCoder also hosts many other competitions including software design, development, assembly and testing, as well asmarathon matches (where coders have a longer time to solve a much harder problem).

Competition:
Where: Boyd Graduate Studies - CSCI Computer Lab (Room 307)
When: Wednesday, March 29, 2006 @ 9 PM
TopCoder provided prizes for the top 3 coders, as well as free pizza and T-shirts for all competitors. Competitors had 75 minutes to solve three problems of varying difficulty and code up solutions to the problems. After the coding phase, things heat up with the challenge phase. Competitors can open each other's source code and submit test cases that will break incorrectly coded solutions. Successful challenges award points to those lucky enough to catch the mistake, but an unsuccessful challenge will cost points, so beware.

Junior, Cole Sherer (koleslaw54), secretary of the UGA-ACM contacted TopCoder to bring them here, then helped organize the competition. "I remembered seeing a College Tour article on TopCoder when I first registered months ago." Cole said. "When I e-mailed them I didn't expect that the tour would still be going on, much less that Katie would answer me so quickly and that TopCoder would handle everything about the competition, including the design of flyers to post on campus."

Katie Kittle is the TopCoder placement agent who handled the competition and all e-mail correspondence with Cole. She drove in from Atlanta to meet everyone, handle the competition, and spread the word of TopCoder to everyone. "This was a great turnout" Katie said, "I hope to see all of you again soon."

I know, I know you're all anxious to know who won the prizes:
1st Place - iPod Nano - PhD student, Cody Boisclair
2nd Place - 512MB Flash Drive - Junior, Cole Sherer
3rd Place - $50 Gift Certificate - Sophomore, Chris Pryby

"Fun," "Exciting," "Thrilling," these were some of the comments of the competitors Wednesday night after the competition. Everyone had a great time and was ready for the next Single Round Match on TopCoder so that they could compete again. Many of those attending agreed to meet often when an SRM is held at night. Coders will be hanging out in Boyd at night a lot more often now.