COOK68 – A subdued March madness

2 min read

We could have called it March madness, had there been any madness. We could have called it March melody, had there been any rhythm. The madness, the melody, and all things fun associated with March had taken a back seat by the time we reached to March Cook-off 2016. The only thing prevailing was the imminent exam season, the last minute rush to wrap up the papers, the practical files, and to kick start the preps for the final exams. There’s something about engineers and their love for the last minute haste, which somehow never ceases to amaze. It was the same story in the second half of the March. But a true engineer always manages to accomplish all things important. And hence we weren’t bothered about the participation in the March Cook-Off 2016. The hanging time-tables on the notice boards, did dip the numbers a tad, but they were still pretty to look at. And hence before we move into the post, let us present you the numbers from our COOK68.

  • Total Users: 1286
  • Total Submissions: 5255
  • Number of distinct users with correct submissions: 1029
  • Total users from India: 614
  • Total users not from India: 672

We finished the contest with 1286 users, almost equally from and outside India. We are sure each one of you enjoyed the problems of Jakub Safin, especially the Alternating Subarray prefix and Digital clock. They both ended up being the most popular problems from the contest in terms of ACs, with Digital clock having a higher accuracy rate of 69.06. Now, isn’t it interesting that the easiest problem troubled the participants more than the second easiest? But then, that’s the fun you get in these short contests.

The story wasn’t drastically different for the harder problems as well. And the Not even planar and the potato problem troubled the participants almost equally, with the former turning out to the hardest of them all. In the middle of the difficulty spectrum was the Dual Nim, with 294 submissions against it. Overall, the problem set was nicely balanced and well tested, thanks to Vasya Antoniuk.

A balanced problem set also means stern competition for the places on the rank table and we got exactly that, with the arrival of uwi in the third minute of the contest. Joining the rank table before him included the likes of hellkitsune, alex_2oo8, fataleagle, and Fdg, who eventually joined him on the podium. In them and few other familiar names, we had our probable winners battling it out. And we thoroughly enjoyed it. With them making an early appearance, there was not a single dull moment into the contest. And we hope it was the same for you as well.

Now, before we move further, let us meet the winners of our CodeChef March Cook-Off 2016:

We start with the ROW top 10:

Now, the Indian top 5:

A huge round of applause for all our winners, and for all you wonderful people who successfully squeezed the COOK68 into their packed March calendars!!!

Before we move forward into this delayed and curtailed tale of March Cook-off 2016, it’s only fair to thank the other gentlemen on our problem setting panel. We start with Rahul Arora, who verified the language of the problem statement; Hu Zecong, the Mandarin translator; Team VNOI, the Vietnamese translator; and finally our admin and editorialist for the contest, Praveen Dhinwa. Thank you gentlemen for all your hard work and time for cooking up the contest, we hope to continue receiving the same for all our future contests.

That brings us to the final segment of the post. We know that not everyone who joins the contest ends up on the rank table. And that is absolutely fine, as long as you are ready to shed the disappointment behind and are ready to move forward with more determination and gusto. We are always by your side and there to help you in any possible manner we can. For now, let us take you to the editorials for the March Cook-off 2016, which we think not only will help you get over the doubts you might have regarding any of the problem from the contest, but also will teach you a thing or two new about competitive programming in general. So, devour them:

That brings us to the final segment of the post. We hope you enjoyed it as much as you enjoyed the contest. However, if you have any concerns or queries regarding the post, the contest, or the CodeChef just in general kindly do write to us at: [email protected]

We will be back soon with the tale from the final contest of March, the March Lunchtime 2016.

Till then, keep coding.

See you at the contests.

Regards,
Rudreshwar
Team CodeChef

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