I was having laptop issues in class today. Since my laptop is really a tablet, it has a battery in the tablet itself and a second battery in the keyboard. The keyboard battery was at 0% and the tablet would try to switch to the keyboard battery and instantly shut off since it had no power. Jack helped me out by removing the tablet battery, which let us see a boot message that said the power adapter I was using wasn't outputting enough voltage for the computer. So thanks, Jack.
Also, at NSF I talked with Kevin and Sam about UMD problem #5. The solution given makes use of a data structure called a directed graph, which can be used to find the shortest path between data points. This is important because the problem asks you to predict the outcomes of battles between Avengers (and Catwoman, I mean come on what were they thinking? Get it straight, UMD!) based on their past battles. So basically, if Thor beats Loki and Loki beats Catwoman, the algorithm should show Thor beating Catwoman. Directed graphs make this possible.
Tomorrow I will try to look into the code behind the UMD solution, as well as take EIMACS test 23.
A few things to keep in mind at you work on these problems:
ReplyDelete1. Some of the problems will involve very high level learning for which you can not expect to be prepared. The problem you discuss in this post requires graph theory. When do you learn graph theory? Well, at UMD it is offered in a senior level course title MTH 475: Combinatorics and Graph Theory (http://www-math.umd.edu/offered-courses/408-math-475-combinatorics-and-graph-theory.html) which has third semester (multi-variable) calculus as a prerequisite.
2. I think the best way to view this contest is as a great opportunity to get exposed some of these high level idea, to learn a lot, and to have fun. Do the problems you are able to do, and skip the ones that totally stump you, though if a problem interests you by all means talk to Kevin about it!
I haven't participated regularly in this contest since I was at Yorktown (see historical score board at: http://www.cs.umd.edu/Outreach/results.htm
Looking back over the last several years, no team has completed all 8 problems (the last time that happened was in 2007 (http://www.cs.umd.edu/Outreach/hsContest07/scores.html), so don't expect to get them all. We need to talk more strategy soon, and the previous scoreboards provide valuable data on how to approach the contest.
Let's talk more about this tomorrow.