Computer Science Canada

ECOO Regional Contest
Author:  etkuo [ Fri Apr 04, 2008 8:07 pm ]
Post subject:  ECOO Regional Contest
The ECOO Regional Contest (Central Region) is on 1st May, which is in conflict with SIN Exam. Is there anyone who needs to write that contest too? Is it possible to postpone the contest for an hour?
Author:  A.J [ Fri Apr 04, 2008 9:55 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: ECOO Regional Contest
I asked Mr.McKenzie and he said that its too late to do anything about it.....
the people at my school are just skipping the SIN....oh well...
Author:  McKenzie [ Sat Apr 05, 2008 6:54 am ]
Post subject:  Re: ECOO Regional Contest
Unfortunately there reaches a point where it's just too late to move the contest. The biggest problem is the physical location. The Universities are generously letting us use rooms and doing a lot of set-up work. Once they have things arranged it is a pain for them to change it. When someone is bending over backwards for you the proper response is "thank you" not "farther."

Conflicts are very hard to avoid. The best I can do is try to find out all possible conflicts, pick a date that looks good and send it out there to see if anyone has a problem. Moving the date or even time at this point may help some, but it may just as easily create new conflicts. The best I can do is add SIN to the list of dates that I try to avoid for next year.
Author:  HeavenAgain [ Sat Apr 05, 2008 8:29 pm ]
Post subject:  RE:ECOO Regional Contest
Well, it kind of sucks to have this feeling, when you are good enough to go to 2nd round (or even 3rd round) and having a conflict and miss your chance.

Quote:
When someone is bending over backwards for you the proper response is "thank you" not "farther."
yes this is also very true. i appreciates the work that is put into this, but say, can't ECOO give out a notice letter or some kind for the student who are writing the SIN contest, and let them write the contest later/before the time? since the student will be with their computer science teacher, they will be under supervision, so why not?

oh on a side note, the biology contest is also on the may 1st, but is in the afternoon (from noon to 3?). some students also have that to worry about Confused just too much stuffs going on
Author:  McKenzie [ Sun Apr 06, 2008 9:09 am ]
Post subject:  Re: RE:ECOO Regional Contest
HeavenAgain @ Sat Apr 05, 2008 8:29 pm wrote:
i appreciates the work that is put into this, but say, can't ECOO give out a notice letter or some kind for the student who are writing the SIN contest, and let them write the contest later/before the time? since the student will be with their computer science teacher, they will be under supervision, so why not?


That's not a bad idea. Like I said, it's unreasonable to ask York or Western to move the date/time they gave us space, but you're right Waterloo might be OK with allowing you to write later as log as I confirm the names of who were competing. I'm out of town right now, but I'll e-mail the SIN guys when I get home tonight. They may be alright with making some workaround.
Author:  etkuo [ Tue Apr 08, 2008 9:13 am ]
Post subject:  RE:ECOO Regional Contest
any updates?
Author:  SJ [ Tue Apr 08, 2008 7:06 pm ]
Post subject:  RE:ECOO Regional Contest
the three teams from my school (2 guys teams 1 girl team) made it to round 2 but about 70% of us are going away on events mentioned above as well as a Chicago band trip...

we have already started looking for backups Sad
Author:  Nyrd [ Tue Apr 08, 2008 9:20 pm ]
Post subject:  RE:ECOO Regional Contest
Ouch. That sucks. What region is your school from?
Author:  SJ [ Thu Apr 10, 2008 7:02 pm ]
Post subject:  RE:ECOO Regional Contest
York Region District School Board from Central.

Anywho, facing woburn, ay jackson, and other good schools should be fun
Author:  McKenzie [ Thu Apr 10, 2008 7:31 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: ECOO Regional Contest
I just got word back from the SIN admin. They are OK with students writing the contest on May 2nd if they have a conflict. I will try to get this news out to all of the affected schools. I have to give credit to HeavenAgain for the idea, well done.
Author:  HeavenAgain [ Thu Apr 10, 2008 10:08 pm ]
Post subject:  RE:ECOO Regional Contest
Excellent news! Now my team can go without anything holding their backs! Really glad this worked out nicely. Thank you Mr. McKenzie!!
As to SJ, good luck! I will be seeing you at Central Wink

Also I have a question on the $70 fee, who pays for that money? I already see that my school is on the regional list, but just wondering who payed for it.
Author:  A.J [ Mon May 05, 2008 10:19 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: ECOO Regional Contest
Regionals went well!!!

I just wanted to know what other people from this site made it through to the finals.
Author:  sven87 [ Tue May 06, 2008 3:49 pm ]
Post subject:  RE:ECOO Regional Contest
4th at regionals... that was such a frustrating contest.
Author:  A.J [ Tue May 06, 2008 6:14 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: ECOO Regional Contest
which region did you participate in sven 87?
Author:  McKenzie [ Tue May 06, 2008 7:44 pm ]
Post subject:  RE:ECOO Regional Contest
sven, what did you find frustrating about it?
Author:  Clayton [ Tue May 06, 2008 8:40 pm ]
Post subject:  RE:ECOO Regional Contest
The biggest complaint I have is Question 3. I believe that graphical questions really shouldn't be done. It's rather limiting if students are say using C++ or something that doesn't have a standard graphics library. What then?
Author:  A.J [ Tue May 06, 2008 8:49 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: ECOO Regional Contest
Clayton wrote:

The biggest complaint I have is Question 3. I believe that graphical questions really shouldn't be done. It's rather limiting if students are say using C++ or something that doesn't have a standard graphics library. What then?


I disagree. I believe that it tests the ability of the participant by making them implement their algorithmic skills + their knowledge on graphics. Students who are used to making games, etc... should have no problem answering them.

I'm pretty sure the people at ECOO are assuming that you have enough knowledge on the language you're using (i.e. know how to implement graphics with the language)

my algorithm for #3 was to first BFS for the red squares, set the path as walls (or inaccessible), then BFS for the blue squares.
In case you can't do red first (since it might block the blue path), I do the blue path first.

What region were you competing in Clayton?
Author:  Clayton [ Tue May 06, 2008 9:05 pm ]
Post subject:  RE:ECOO Regional Contest
A.J. wrote:
I disagree. I believe that it tests the ability of the participant by making them implement their algorithmic skills + their knowledge on graphics. Students who are used to making games, etc... should have no problem answering them.


Wrong. This wasn't a contest that was testing you on your game making skills (or at least it shouldn't have been). It just adds a new level of complexity that does not need to be there. The point of the competition was to solve a problem, not play paint by numbers.
Author:  HeavenAgain [ Tue May 06, 2008 10:10 pm ]
Post subject:  RE:ECOO Regional Contest
if im not mistaken..... problem number two, the first picture "rose" of the ascii art. there is a space missing at the end. It shouldve been "25. " not "24. " and that costed my team 10+ points or so ( but then again, we shouldn't have assumed each test case should end with perfect spacing and such)

another problem might be the first problem's example, that i cant confirm because i dont have the papers, but i heard the example was wrong? like its opposite or something.
Author:  sven87 [ Wed May 07, 2008 2:32 pm ]
Post subject:  RE:ECOO Regional Contest
i found every question pretty annoying... on the first question, i messed up implementing the special case and got 3/5 on the first run. i fixed it an submitted again and got 2/5 because i forgot to tell my program to ignore all non-character letters in the key. so lame.
the second question went by pretty smoothly, but it creating test data sucked.
third question used graphics.. that's enough said.
fourth question was kinda cool, i'm a little dissapointed it took me so long to find the right logic. but it was also really lame because the question never specified to round to the nearest int or to just drop the decimal, and all the test data had numbers that rounded down anyway.

I was at western, if you were there, i was the guy doing it alone Sad
Author:  etkuo [ Thu May 08, 2008 10:06 am ]
Post subject:  Re: ECOO Regional Contest
Quote:
another problem might be the first problem's example, that i cant confirm because i dont have the papers, but i heard the example was wrong? like its opposite or something.

ya i got stuck there for so long before finally submitting it. and to my surprise i got perfect on it. i waslike WTF... wasted so much time on it.

and for question 2, are u expecting us to type that freaking input file....
Author:  McKenzie [ Thu May 08, 2008 12:42 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: RE:ECOO Regional Contest
Clayton @ Tue May 06, 2008 9:05 pm wrote:
The point of the competition was to solve a problem, not play paint by numbers.

If you look at past problems you will find graphic problems show up from time to time. The rules state that the only non-standard library you are allowed is a graphics library.

I find that students who get upset at ECOO are upset because it doesn't look exactly like CCC or USACO. For the most part they are goofy Ad-Hoc problems. If you look at old problem sets you can see what to expect from an ECOO competition. You can prefer CCC over ECOO or vice-versa but don't be upset when then ECOO problems look like ECOO problems or CCC problems look like CCC problems.
Author:  SJ [ Fri May 09, 2008 5:05 pm ]
Post subject:  RE:ECOO Regional Contest
we were told that if we didn't know how to do graphics, we could use characters to draw out the paths.

ie
..b..r
..b.r.
..br..

or something

they were pretty cool judges
Author:  A.J [ Sat May 10, 2008 12:02 am ]
Post subject:  Re: ECOO Regional Contest
All the questions were pretty simple.....I just didn't finish Q4....

And this year's ECOO contest is different from the usual ECOO contest (questionwise) since there were more than one graphics question...
Author:  McKenzie [ Sun May 11, 2008 7:31 am ]
Post subject:  Re: ECOO Regional Contest
I don't think you can call question #2 a "graphics question" because you don't need a graphics library to solve it.
Author:  Clayton [ Sun May 11, 2008 8:16 am ]
Post subject:  Re: RE:ECOO Regional Contest
McKenzie @ Thu May 08, 2008 12:42 pm wrote:
Clayton @ Tue May 06, 2008 9:05 pm wrote:
The point of the competition was to solve a problem, not play paint by numbers.

If you look at past problems you will find graphic problems show up from time to time. The rules state that the only non-standard library you are allowed is a graphics library.

I find that students who get upset at ECOO are upset because it doesn't look exactly like CCC or USACO. For the most part they are goofy Ad-Hoc problems. If you look at old problem sets you can see what to expect from an ECOO competition. You can prefer CCC over ECOO or vice-versa but don't be upset when then ECOO problems look like ECOO problems or CCC problems look like CCC problems.


To tell you the truth, I'm not much into Computer Science contests (only CCC, ECOO, and some Project Euler if I'm bored), it's more about math to me. However, I've found that adding a graphics element to questions (both in competitions or not) distract many students from actually solving the problem while they are setting up a proper looking graphic output. Sure you can argue that doing all of the graphics is part of the problem, but is it really? This also hurts students that are using something like C++ for the contest. That's a lot of extra work to do just because they'd need to output their solution graphically.

While I totally agree with you that ECOO does not need to look like CCC or USACO (in fact, I rather like the questions to be honest), I disagree with the graphics part, and I still think that it will force some students into some uncomfortable positions, whether they have looked at previous contests or not.
Author:  Reality Check [ Sun May 18, 2008 3:45 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: ECOO Regional Contest
I fully agree^^. These contests are all about getting the logic and math right. Graphics should not be here and although it isn't hard to implement, it just adds an extra level of complexity that is not needed.
Author:  [Gandalf] [ Sun May 18, 2008 5:56 pm ]
Post subject:  RE:ECOO Regional Contest
Don't the contest questions define what the contest is about? How can you assume they're all about "getting the logic and math right"?
Author:  A.J [ Mon May 19, 2008 10:36 am ]
Post subject:  Re: ECOO Regional Contest
I agree with Gandalf. All contests are different and have their own way of challenging people, so one can't assume what ALL contests
have in common.

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