May Contain Bolts

A quick welcome to Deva, Doog and Thashan to the blogosphere. Happy Birthday again to Kelly (who probably won’t read this, and I wish I could have said it in person). The following is a recount of the alternate/parallel universe UNSW Open Day. Follow the links from mishmashmosh’s blog for the other UNSW Open Day. Sorry, this post is pictureless.

Level 1, Building K17, UNSW, Kensington. Kenneth (year 11) and I walk up the stairs of the CSE (Computer Science and Engineering) building, into the small competition room. It’s approaching 11AM, and as we walk into the room we see the team of year 10s from Queensland neatly set up in the back-left corner, and a Ruse blazer in the back-right.

The enemy had beaten us already.

We took our places behind, wondering where on earth our third team member (Evgeny, year 10)  could possibly be.  Kenneth called him. Voicemail. Damn. It was approaching 11:30, and the competition was meant to start at 12:30. Plus, the fact that he was the one with the computer and the printer. This wasn’t the first time either – last year for another programming comp (ACPC), he left us stranded on the day of the competition, because “he forgot”. Not looking good.

Ms C arrives. We have our first R09 visitors. Small talk from me. Quite awkward. Walk away. Hope I didn’t make you feel awkward.

Davo, Mank and Shiva finish setting up. In the front left there’s the returners – St Andrews. They’re loaded – 2 x 24″ Dell LCD monitors, a huge desktop PC, a laptop, and they even had a roadie. (lols) Next to them are Penrith, the youngest in the comp. And the team behind us – North Sydney Boys – is nowhere to be found.

Time’s running out for both Evgeny and NSB. Luckily for us, he arrives before 12, loaded and ready to go. NSB are still nowhere to be found, as we head down for free sausages at 12. Do they even know it’s on?

So we stand. And we wait. Man, they cook sausages slow. Even with the massive frontage. I see the person in front get two slices of bread, and I do the same. I am now holding two slices of bread. They offer me two sausages…and I only take one. So now I have one sausage and two pieces of bread. What’s wrong with me? :/

There’s something not quite right about the sausage either. The outside is hard, but the inside is…squishy, and doesn’t taste quite right. USyd’s engineering BBQ was better. And what is it with engineering and BBQs? Apparently UNSW’s CSE does one every Monday or something. That’s a lot of sausage.

Some of the R09 party comes and queues. Greet greet, wish wish, thank thank.

It’s about 12:20, and NSB finally arrive, weary and lunch deprived. We’re about to kick off, and we finish off final preparations and a run through the rules.

START

Relatively close throughout. St Andrews get the early break with the first Q, followed by Mank’s team. It’s swippy swappy between us 3 throughout the competition. Evgeny powers through the problems, and Kenneth finishes problem 5 (after lengthy debugging to find 1 bug) giving us the breakaway.

One problem left, task 4 – an image processing question. Evgeny goes to code it, and we think we have the first half – it’s a picture of Bart Simpson. Only problem is the colours on ours are a bit off…the judge comes.

WRONG

We move on to the second half of the question. It works! +14 points. Mank’s team is quick to reply, finishing problem 5 and moving onto the same one as us.

30 mins left in the comp. We switch and swap things, hoping to get it to work for the first image. Code is printed, tediously analysed and prodded. No cigar. Bart’s face is still brown, and his shirt is an off-pink colour. Mank’s team seems to be having the same problem, as they go to submit and get rejected.

Then breakthrough. Unfortunately, not for us. They’ve solved the first half, leaving us just 5 points in front. We’re going to need a miracle to break us out of this. It doesn’t make sense! How can it work for the hard part of the question, and not for the easy part?

2:36: “YES!” High fives go all around. 100 lights up on the scoreboard. The R09 cheer squad celebrates with the victors. I sit staring blankly at the screen, and our broken code. Mank has done it. But it’s not over yet. For us.

We continue to sit, and chop and change while hoping that St Andrews doesn’t finish Q5. What could possibly be wrong? Much elation and laughter can be heard from outside. The heroes, the champions being praised.

It approaches time. I look over at the St Andrews table, where they are meticulously bashing away on the keyboard. We go into rewrites, as I start coding my solution, then scrap it and continue to prod at the failed code.

FINISH

The adventures begin

The competition comes to an end. We retain second, and congratulate the victors.  The announcement is made, the thanks goes out, we pack and leave. I meet people I haven’t seen in a while, and others that I have. I meet Brad Hall and discuss computing at UNSW. He suggests I go the the co-op desk in the <30mins before the whole place folds, so I take my stuff and walk.

And get lost with Mank.

Eventually we reach the scientia building, and I talk to the nice people there about co-op.

Now, here’s some juicy info. Co-op doesn’t come in a double-degree flavour during signup, but if you perform well enough and your sponsor lets you, they will consider allowing you to do a double degree.

We leave and return to CSE. The others have all got the red UNSW cloth bags. I want one. So I decide to head on a voyage of discovery. We ask some people in the main street, and they point us towards the front gate. Mank decided he want to tag along, so we walk.

And walk. And walk. And walk. (why is it so long?)

And we reach the stand at the front. In front of us there’s a group of three 5-year-old kids. On the table, there’s 3 bags left.

“Would you like a bag?” the student behind the desks ask the kid. And one by one, they take and take. And then it’s gone.

“Uh, excuse me, would you happen to have any bags left?”

“Sorry we’re out, but you might want to try the other desk, up over there.”

WHERE. WE. JUST. CAME. FROM.

By now, my mum’s waiting for me somewhere along the street. We walk back up the road. Past the not-that-good-at-cheerleading cheerleaders. Past the half-toppled balloon arch with the Commonwealth Bank colours. Past the misaligned projector screen on the jumping castle. Past the awkward animeUNSW stand (the conversation on the way down consisted of: “So, this is the anime society in UNSW?” “Yes.” “Wow.” *looks at the Japanese magazines on the desk, and the box with the Gundam model* *walks away*).

Next to the O-Week stand, we ask a person in a red UNSW shirt where we could possibly find one of these elusive red bags that everyone has. He points us to the door on up to the left. So we walk in, turn and

THERE’S NOBODY THERE AND THERE’S NOTHING ON THE DESK.

What the crap. All that for nothing? I wanted that bag. Bad. And I wasn’t going to leave without getting one. A senior UNSW person walked past, and I asked him. His assistant saw the box next to the desk, opened it, and pulled out two bags for us. (“Am I allowed to do this?”) MISSION ACCOMPLISHED. As we walked out, a family, looked at each other after seeing what happened, and approached the box cautiously, as if it had some mysterious protective force surrounding it. What happened next I do not know, for I had made my mother wait about 10mins already, and was not going to hold her up any longer.

So that’s the end of our story. Turns out it was 2 characters that lost us the comp. Ah well. I shall leave you with a quote from the great champion Mank:

“I won ProgComp and all I got was this lousy cloth bag – which I already got last time.” – Mank