March 9, 2009, Richie Fernando Hall, Three Computer science students wins first place and earned the coveted championship title during the Second Ateneo Programming Challenge.
The whole day competition was designed to determine who among the contestants can solve and provide solutions using computer programs to problems drawn from high school and college mathematics and computing, as well as from everyday knowledge in their preferred computer language.
The UNC CS Team Wolves joined the Open Category which is open to all Higher Education institutions in the Province. There were Six competing teams composed of three students each and I faculty as coach.
Ms. Faye B. Yao (2nd Year), Ms. Mclyn B. Dimaculangan (2nd year) and Mr. Bryan-Kim R. Sarmiento (4th Year), along with Mr. Romel Reyes as Coach comprised the winning team.
“APC ’09 is great! The most unforgettable part is during the contest period, you feel the pressure creeping in especially when the contest hour is almost to its end… and one can really feel the tense mood because we thought there is already a winner… luckily, there was a tie-breaker, and we really did our best to solve the new set of problems. All in all, it was worth it. Go CS!”, Mclyn said when asked about her experience.
Faye shared that, “the worst part was when I thought that talo na kami because I was not confident with some of the program-solutions we made. However, I thought that if by chance there will be a new set to determine the winner; I’ll give it more than what I have given already. And we did win! Disappointing though, the other team got to solve the problem too but it is still fulfilling for a first-timer like me.”
“I didn’t feel nervous when I entered the competition venue… and all I can think of is when got lost while looking for the venue, shocking though that during the warm up program, we were able to finish it in 19 minutes which is good sabi ni Coach, considering I’m the encoder. In our excitement to win the competition, and to offset the other team during the tie-breaker, we really floored the gas and came up with the solution in 21 minutes and it was long 24 minutes wait…”, Kim said.
They were awarded the Champion’s trophy, a certificate, gift items and other freebies.
The APC competition is one of the prestigious programming challenges and having won the championship in the provincial level the UNC CS Team looks forward to competing in regional events.