Yesterday Oisín Sheridan and I partook in the newly revived spring Programmathon competitive programming contest here at maynooth.

It was great to see such a huge turnout for the event! There was on the order of 100 competitors there, most of whom CS students of the university (sadly, other universities weren’t allowed to attend, something which I hope I see changed in the future). The contest structure was unique, in that the winners were the team to first reach 500/800 points. I suppose this is nice in that it solves the issue of multiple teams fullsolving the contest.

We won! (which is good, considering how embarassing it would be to lose as the college’s only long term competitive programmer)

The contest had two sponsors and they say that they intend to run the contest annually (as apparently used to be done). This is brilliant news for the competitive programming scene here, as is the talk about setting up a college capture the flag team (something I intend very much to be a part of).

This event is one of many this week that are eating up my time for study (I should be studying right now but I am blogging!!). Exams are, unfortunately, right around the corner, so I’ll get to it.