ACM ICPC

There are two attractions in life that any student will not pass up. One: free clothes. Two: free food. This is the reason I found myself in the Hamilton Computer Labs at 8:00 on a Saturday morning for the ACM Programming competition.

Being handed six problems that range from decoding a bar code to "fixing" problems with a mathematical expression is pretty daunting. Add to that a room with a collective IQ of roughly 5000 and yup, I was in over my head. Not to mention the Computers Honours students who have finished the first question by the time you get the computer to log in correctly.

All that said, the competition was not as bad as expected. With my amazing team mate, a true computer genuis, we managed to get two of the problems seemingly working (or at least it seemed). Of course, when we submitted the projects the system managed to break them (through NO faults of ours..), so we didn't get any credit for them.

All in all, the competition was a worthwhile experience. I practiced my critical thinking skills, killed a morning, and got an awesome free t-shirt.

And of course, there was the pizza. *YUM*