Students run up and down the stairs in the Computer Science Building I at Técnico – Alameda campus over the weekend. On 30 November and 1 December Técnico hosted the knockout stages of the International Collegiate Programming Contest – Southwestern Europe Regional Contest (ICPC-SWERC). The event, which took place simultaneously in three different locations – at Técnico, in Lyon (France) and Pisa (Italy), brought together participants from Portugal, Spain, Italy, Switzerland and Israel, and was attended by 141 teams.
As teams solved each of the 14 problems proposed, they received a balloon with a colour associated with that problem, and their work table became more decorated and colourful as the competition went on. The proposed exercises, centred on legends and myths from various cultures, challenged participants to develop algorithms to design medieval fortresses, interpret the ruins of a Greek theatre or even decipher the rules of a board game from 2000 BC based on an archaeological artefact. The aim was to secure passage to the ICPC Europe Championship, which will take place from 28 February to 2 March next year.
‘Essentially, students have to have very good problem-solving skills,’ explains Alexandre Francisco, a professor at Técnico, the Vice-president of Técnico for Digital Technologies and co-director of the event. These skills involve ‘reading the problem, identifying it, thinking about the solutions and algorithms they know, solving the problem from a formal and mathematical point of view, implementing the solution, submitting it and seeing it approved’. The professor stressed that Técnico’s involvement with events of such magnitude demonstrates ‘organisational and logistics capacity for these large-scale events, to welcome teams from various countries and organising spaces for the purpose, with computer capacity’ for the competition.
Rita Almeida, an Applied Mathematics and Computation master’s student at Técnico, is participating in the competition for the second time. She has been in France for last year’s edition. ‘I am here for fun – let’s see how it goes’, she shares optimistically. Her team, RUNTIMERROR, solved problems from previous contests. In the same room, for ‘moral support’ (in their own words), a team was supported by Rigatoni, a packet of pasta with sunglasses, scarf and cap, who looked on approvingly at the work of the three students from the Israel Institute of Technology who nicknamed him.
A few hours later, while waiting for the final results to be announced at the Técnico Congress Centre, Lola Navarro and Mencía Marzal, shared the performance of their teams (Skibidi Onii-chans and Club Universitario de Natación Equidistante a Filipinas, respectively), both from CUNEF Universidad de Madrid. ‘We learnt a lot and I really enjoyed the experience; I want to do it again next year,’ said Lola Navarro. Mencía Marzal says that, as second-year students, ‘the event was challenging’. ‘It went very well; we learnt a lot’.
The teams’ position in the league table (projected on the screen) was updated in real time. Whenever a team obtained confirmation of another correct answer, symbolised by a green block, the Congress Centre erupted in a roar of celebration and applause for the victory of any other team, which confirmed the message shared by many participants during the two days – having fun is more important than winning.
