Softec Day 2

We reached the dynamic programming contest place on time but they had problems and the contest got delayed a bit. We roamed around the software competition place and came back, only to find that all the teams were in position and were ready to go! I was sitting next to a bunch of indian teams. The one on the immediate right was Kunal's team! This time we had a really weird computer with a 14 inch monitor and a conjested place. Finally! The competition started!

We got brownies and pepsi served during the competition and that was supposed to be our breakfast! Wow! They stopped the scoreboard when one hour was left and we were at 5th position then with four correct solutions! We submitted the 5th correct solution and we burst into a big 'YEAHH' in the crowed. The MAJU team seemed to be pretty disappointed because they had solved 4 and they were above us. We knew that we were amongst the top 3 but we weren't fully sure. We were given certificates and shields of participation after the competition was over. There was a huge ceremony in the evening time. They were about to announce the DPC (Dynamic Programming Competition) prizes and there you go... NED University gets the 3rd prize! We were so darned happy! They called 'NED' as in 'ned kelly' but I knew what it meant. Usman, Mehroz and other FASTian friends were wondering why I was jumping with all the excitement. They realized after they called in our names. We went to the stage and collected our prize money. It was $250 + $50 (bonus!). Dinner was served after that and we were the happiest people on earth! We went to the lodge for one last night.

Softec 2005 - Day 1

The night at the PTCL lodging was nice. I woke up early, took a bath, did a shave and we were ready to raise hell! The bus was a bit late but we made it to FAST well ahead in time before the contest started. We ate a bunch of Shawarmas before the contest started. We did a photo session with the indians during the lunch session and we made good friends! Gagan, Supreet, Kunal... only to name a few. Usman and I heard drums and guitars near the hall where the initial ceremony took place and went to take a look. FAST had planned an entertainment night planned for the particpants and guests and the guys were preparing for it. They were generous enough to let me in that small place where they were practicing and I sung with him the Lifehouse song Hanging by the Moment. It was so much fun! Now it was time to do some programming!

Today was the warmup round since there were lots of people who did not know how to use PC^2 and had so many questions about the nature of the problems. Finally the contest started, we were team-21 on the warmup day. There were indian teams all around us. I was on the keyboard and Mehroz and Usman were doing the major thinking (lucky me!). We were sitting on a Dell machine with a 17" monitor! We worked hard but ended up in 5th position. We didn't take long to revise VC++ and STL and we were alive and kicking in minutes. Mehroz proved to be an extremely fast learner when he got hang of VC++ in a very short time. By the way, we guys messed up a simple binary search algorithm, can you believe that? Doh!

Well finally that was over, we headed to the entertainment show! The FAST Karachi guys left off with their teacher to explore places in Lahore! They missed the entire contest and they have no idea what they missed! The FAST Lahore people were awesome! They did a drama, they did a bunch of live songs and a guy did amazing magic tricks with the teachers from the Indian delegation. An IIT professor was called upon the stage to sing a song and he sang an old classical indian song for his wife in Bombay. Next, we had a sufi item from a three very special people. They performed for about 50 minutes and they brough the entire crowd into a trance. Bunch of volunteers went to the stage to dance and I joined them. It was so much fun!

We had dinner and were taken to our lodges after that. The first day of contest ends here!

Softec 2005 - Day 0

March 11, 2005

Day 0, 7:30pm: Six of us (3 from NED, 3 from FAST) united at the airport to fly down to Lahore. We took the most economical ticket of Shaheen airlines (the plane was delayed by 30 minutes!). FASTians received Rs. 4000 per person for expenses in Lahore and we had only submitted the application which had not been approved then. The journey was smooth and calm! There were two kids sitting on the seat behind ours so we had a lot of fun with them. Mehroz was enjoying the scenic beauty from the window; Usman was reading his Cormen book; Emad, Farhan and myself listening to music (I was reading DaVinci Code too!); Munir was getting bored because he didn't have anything to read or listen to. It was a petty two hours flight. We arrived at the Lahore airport! Though I've been there before but having seen the airports at the US... this time it was quite different! The airport is pretty well-built. Lahore tey akhir Lahore hai!

Day 0, 10:15p - continued: Since we were 6 people with lots of luggage, calling a friend for a ride was not a good idea so we decided to go on our own. We thought of taking a cab but we'd have to take two cabs and each was costing Rs. 400 so we decided that we need a more economical solution. The idea of putting Emad in the bunker came into my mind but then I remembered that humans ought to be treated equal (I did you a favour Emad! heh!). We took a bus to Aara Bazar, we missed the our destination and had to come back in another bus. It was past 11:00p and we were not going to get any bus for Faisal Town. We took two rickshaws and headed straight to FAST Lahore! It wasn't a very cosy solution but we saved money!

Day 0, 12:00am: Enter fast Lahore, loaded with people everywhere! They collected our luggages, gave us dinner and then we got a ride to our hostel, for the night stay. While sitting and waiting for our carrier to the hostel, we learnt that C# was not allowed in the Dynamic Programming Competition. We were all set to work out the problems in C# so it was a blow in the head for us! We decided that Visual C++ is the next best option! Since I was the official coder of my team, my childhood knowledge of STL came really handy! Usman was well-versed in STL as well! On the other hand, Mehroz had no idea of VC++ whatsoever.