Parents Weekend Presentation

Arup Guha, EECS Lecturer and Programming Team Coach

Special Thanks to Dr. Ali Orooji, the team’s head coach who developed these slides

UCF’s Most Dominant TeamComputer Programming Team

• Organized by the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) and sponsored by IBM

• 2-Tiered process (Regional competitions followed by World Finals)

• 2008-2009 numbers: 88 countries from 6 continents 1,800+ universities 7,000+ teams 100 teams advancing to

ACM World Finals

ACM International CollegiateProgramming Contest (ICPC)

ACM ICPC History

• Local Contest held at Texas A&M by the UPE Computer Honor Society in 1970.

• Others liked the idea and soon, several contests appeared across the US.

• In 1977, the ACM hosted the first “World” Finals at their annual conference. Michigan State University won this inaugural event.

• Since 1989, the contest headquarters have been located at Baylor University.

Contest Organization

• Unofficial Tier: University competitions to pick the participants from the school. (Jun – Aug)o Run by team coaches

• Regional Contest (Sept – Dec)o Typically 50-100 Teamso Run by local contest staffo Regional Winners get to go to World Finalso Depending on Region size, sometimes the 2nd or

3rd place teams may be invited to World Finals

Contest Organization – con’t

• World Finals (Feb – Apr)o 100 teams invitedo IBM Sponsorship started in 1997

Since then, participation has increased 746%o International Hosts

2009 Stockholm, Sweden 2008 Banff, Canada 2007 Tokyo, Japan 2006 San Antonio, USA 2005 Shanghai, China

ACM Programming Contest: World Finals Contest Growth

UCF Team Selection

• Individual Contesto Questions Created and Judged by Team

Coacheso In 2009, 92 students tried out and 75 of them

solved at least one question correctly.o The top two students solved 8 questions.

• Team Compositiono Coaches meet to decide which students will work

best together to give UCF the best chance to wino Five teams of three students are selected.

Current UCF Team Coaches

• Dr. Ali Orooji (Head coach since 1989)• Glenn Martin (Former UCF team member)• Jason Daly (World Finals 2001)• Chris Gouge (World Finals 1991-2)• Raymond Ho (World Finals 2004-5)• Nadeem Mohsin (World Finals 2007-8)• Stephen Fulwider (World Finals 2008-9)• Ben Douglass (World Finals 2005-6)• And, Yours Truly =)

ACM Programming Contest: UCF’s EECS Team World Finals

• This is UCF’s 27 straight year of ACM competition

• UCF’s World Contest Final Recordso Second Placeo Fourth Placeo Fifth Placeo Seventh Place

ACM International CollegiateProgramming Contest

• The UCF team has finished in the top three for 27 straight years (every year it has participated) in the Southeast Region

• UCF’s Southeast Regional Contest Results:o First Place – 13 timeso Second Place – 8 timeso Third Place – 6 times

UCF’s EECS Team: Outstanding ACM Programming Contest Success

• Unmatched record of programming success against top programs competing in the Southeast region:o University of Floridao Florida State Universityo Georgia Techo Auburno Clemsono University of South Carolinao Mississippi State

• $400,000+ donation in Fall 2008 from a private donor, who is a EECS alumnus and top executive with the world’s premier online search and information company, with future funding likely

• $60,000+ gift of support from partner Walt Disney Co. and its Walt Disney Parks and Resorts for several years running

• $70,000+ donation from supporter Harris Corp. for several years running

Support and Opportunities for UCF’s EECS Programming Team

ACM Contest Format

• Three students per team

• One computer per team

• Typically 6-10 problems

• Five hours

• Team solving the most problems wins (penalty point system in case of ties)

Sample Team Tryout Questions

• Truth Tellers and Liarso Given a list of statements by people about

whether or not other people are truth tellers or liars, determine whether each person is a truth teller, a liar, or could be either.

• Sun Walkingo Given two locations on campus, as well as

descriptions of where there is shade (approximated by circles) determine the least amount of walking that must be done in the sun to travel between the two locations

Sample Regional Contest Questions

• Series/Parallel Resistor Circuitso Given the description of a circuit with resistors in

both series and parallel, determine if the circuit is well-formed, and if so, determine the effective resistance of the circuit.

• Blackjack – no win situationo Given the order of cards in a deck, determine

whether or not it is possible for the player to beat the dealer.

Sample World Finals Questions

• Deer-Proof Fenceo Given the locations of trees to protect from the

deer, determine the minimum amount of fence to enclose all the trees so that each tree is at least a given margin away from the fence that encloses it.

• A Careful Approacho Given a list of up to eight planes’s landing time

windows, determine the maximum gap that can be provided between any pair of landings.

Harris Corp. Engineering Center

Home of the School of EECS

Acknowledgements

• A majority of the data in these slides was gathered from Dr. Ali Orooji, who is not only our team coach, but the North American Regional Contest Director.

• World Finals data was taken from: http://cm.baylor.edu/welcome.icpc

• Contest Question were taken directly from the problem sets

THANK YOU! ANY QUESTIONS?

DMARINO@EECS.UCF.EDU