Stony Brook teams finished 6th and 8th among the 50 combatants at the ACM ICPC Greater New York Regional Programming Contest held at Yale University on October 27th, 2013. Our two best teams were so closely matched that only one minute separated them afer solving the first five problems only two hours into the contest (see scoreboard above).
The contest problems proved to be unexpectedly simple, turning the competition into a "typing" test where shear coding speed triumphed over the more challenging algorithmically-oriented problems that are traditionally Stony Brook's bread and butter. Still, Stony Brook was the very first team on the board, solving problem B only five minutes into the contest.
NYU won the region, finishing its first eight problems in under two hours but completing its ninth just two minutes before Stony Brook's team 1. A total of six teams solved all nine problems, including Stony Brook's team 1. It was a satisfying win for NYU, establishing a new power in our region which includes the Ivy League schools Princeton, Columbia, Yale, and Cornell.
As usual, Stony Brook accumulated bragging rights for SUNY and Long Island schools. Binghamton's team finished 48th, behind all Stony Brook teams. All our teams finished in the top half of the field.
Coach Yanqing Chen helped prepare all of the Stony Brook teams for the event, and managed on-site operations at Yale, with great appreciation from faculty advisor Steven Skiena. Chen recently had his own major programming contest triumph, finishing first in the Fifth Dyalog APL Programming contest. This annual event put problem solving skills to the test by using APL to develop array-oriented solutions to short puzzles and more complex problems in three broad subject areas. He won $2500 and an invitation to attend speak at the Dyalog conference in Florida in October.
The top Stony Brook 1 student team of Xiang Yu, Thao Do, and Vincent Tsuei (left to right) finished in sixth place, solving all nine problems. Vincent competed four years for Stony Brook, finishing a close second in 2012.
Stony Brook 2 paired graduate students Yafei Duan and Oleksii Starov with undergrad Sheng Cao. They solved eight problems, and would have had nine except for errors in the problem's published sample data. Sheng will return as a junior to compete again next year.
Our Stony Brook 3 "Seacubs" team featured freshman-sophmores Stephen Tschudi, Nolan Donoghue, and Luigi Keh, and solved four problems. They finished third among freshman-sophomore teams, and in 24th place overall, putting them in the top half of the field. They will be back for next year's contest with a full year of classes under their belt.
Previous years results include: