Monday, November 17, 1997
Nine UCLA students compete in IBM contest
TECHNOLOGY:
Talented programmers learn about working togetherBy Cindy
Choi
Daily Bruin Contributor
Try this. Calculate the wind direction and velocity of a Mars
Pathfinder-like space craft based on the input of its sensors and
then create a computer program to match it.
It’s one problem that UCLA computer science students had this
weekend.
Nine UCLA students participated last weekend in the 27th annual
Association for Computing Machine (ACM) programming contest
sponsored by IBM.
They competed in a Southern California regional round at Cal
State Northridge in three teams named Blue, Gold and Bruin.
Students were given six questions and five hours. The game goes
like this: contestants work on the thinking process using pencil
and paper. After the team devises an approach, they must start
programming. After the solution is submitted, the judges run the
programs, which either confirms or rejects the submission.
Solving four problems, UCLA’s Blue team placed third, giving
them a chance for a wild-card spot to advance to the final
international round held February 1998 in Atlanta, Georgia.
"300 seconds!" was the frustrated cry of second-year computer
science student Ilya Haykinson, whose Blue team lost the second
place ranking by five minutes. Even though they both solved four
problems, Caltech had fewer penalties and thus a time
advantage.
On the other hand, the Gold team struggled for four hours on one
problem. Believing that they could find a solution by fixing just
one more thing, the team stuck to one problem without moving on the
other questions.
"We fell prey to the last-bug syndrome," fourth-year computer
science student Kenji Sagae said. "We should have listened to
Smallberg." David Smallberg, a former UCLA programming contestant
and a one-time international ACM champion sent e-mail tips and
specifically warned this year’s students to stay wary of the
last-bug syndrome.
At the end of the contest, the Gold team had not yet solved one
problem. They submitted two problems but the judges rejected their
programs. They had two problems solved on paper, but in this
contest an unprogrammed problem is worthless.
"Without teamwork, you would fall apart and never finish, but no
matter how good the team work is, talent is most important,"
Haykinson said.
Although the competition may seem like a battle of the brains,
it turned out that strategy was as important as talent.
Understanding the problem was a key step.
Even when the necessary information can be condensed to a few
paragraphs, some problems took over three pages of explanations as
an attempt to confuse the contestants with irrelevant
information.
"Once you get rid of the fancy window dressing, it’s a classical
word problem that I would get in class," said Roger Cheng, a
second-year computer-science graduate student.
The strategy involved collaborating brain power to solve
problems under special conditions. "The solution that is the most
efficient may not be possible to implement in a given time. It’s
about coming up with the solutions, which is the hard part, and
creating programs very quickly," Sagae said.
Sagae, who participated previously in an ACM competition, acted
as a coach and a strategist to UCLA. He optimized the teams by
matching people with complimentary skills.
Sagae’s interest in programming began as a 13-year-old with
video games. He didn’t play video games; he programmed them.
"I really like brain teasers," he said. Last year he posted
brain teasers on the Computer Science Undergraduate Association web
page to challenge others.
Evan Tsang, a first-year computer science graduate student, also
started programming early, at age 11. He learned programming
languages on his own initiative and programmed simple computer
games.
Teresa Yan, fourth-year senior in computer science and
engineering, learned programming at the age of 10. Because there
are many different ways to approach a problem, creativity plays a
large role, she said.
Tsang, a self-taught programmer, participated two times in past
ACM contests.
"People who don’t know what programming might think we sit in
front of the computer all day not socializing. But it’s not true,"
Tsang said. "In any kind of programming, you need teamwork."
MICHAEL ROSS WACHT
The UCLA Gold team celebrates a successful step in their program
during the IBM-sponsored computer programming contest. (Left to
right): fourth-year student Naveen Nalam, first-year grad student
Evan Tsang, and fourth-year student Kenji Sagae.