Adam Florence - Programming Contests

Adam Florence
Programming Contests

ACM International Collegiate Programming Contest

Each year, the ACM hosts a programming contest open to undergraduates around the world. I have been involved with their International Collegiate Programming Contest for four years.

1999-2000: David Kempe and I trained two teams that competed in the Greater New York Regional Contest. We got both first and second place; Concordia University in Montreal got third.

A Cornell press release announces our achievements.
An article in the December 2, 1999 Cornell Chronicle. Warning: The article contains several errors.
Pictures of team 1 (Gun Srijuntongsiri, Jacob Hoffman-Andrews, and Hubert Chen) and team 2 (Kang-hoe Kim, Joel Chestnutt, and Jed Liu).
Picture of both teams and the two coaches: big (560 k) or small (76 k). (Photo by Robert Barker/Cornell University Photography.)

We would like to thank Green Hills Software for funding our trip to Regionals, and for their generous donation which helped fund out trip to the World Finals. They have been sponsoring our trip to Regionals for the past four years.

The team competed in the World Finals in Orlando, Florida on Saturday, March 18, 2000. We got 22nd place, out of 80 teams. The final standings are available.

A picture of me and Sallie Henry at the RCD Symposium: big (354 k) or small (50 k).
A picture of me, Sallie Henry, and Jeff Ford.
A picture of the team before the contest: big (520 k) or small (75 k).

I am also the Regional Contest Director for the Greater New York region.

1998-99: I trained a team for Cornell which competed in the Greater New York Regional Contest. We got first place; Columbia University got second. The contest was held at Bloomfield College in Bloomfield, NJ.
- An article in the December 3, 1998 Cornell Chronicle.
- A picture of me and the team. From the left, it's me, Mike Smullens, Erik Dangremond, and David Kempe. (Photo by Patrick Fox of Bloomfield College.)
- A picture of me judging. (Photo by Patrick Fox of Bloomfield College.)
- We are mentioned in the department's 1998-99 Annual Report.
The team competed in the World Finals in Eindhoven, The Netherlands on Sunday, April 11, 1999. A truly exciting point came 53 minutes into the contest, when Cornell was vaulted into first place by being the first team to get 2 problems correct. We held first place until 105 minutes into the contest, when Berkeley was the first team to get 3 problems correct.
In the end, the University of Waterloo came in first place, and Cornell was 18th of 62 teams. This is an incredible accomplishment, especially considering this is Cornell's first time at the international contest. More importantly, on a personal level at least, we just barely beat Virginia Tech, where I went as an undergrad. I was on the VT team my senior year.
- A Cornell press release about the World Finals.
- Team picture during Saturday's practice. From the left it's David Kempe, Erik Dangremond, and Mike Smullens. (Photo by ACM.)
- Two pictures of me at the Regional Contest Director's meeting on Saturday: one and two. (Photo by ACM.)
- A picture of the team before the contest: small (21 k) or big (560 k).
- Team during the contest on Sunday. (Photo by ACM.)
- A picture of the team during the contest. They have three balloons because, so far, they've gotten 3 problems correct. small (38 k) or big (503 k).
The final standings are available.
We would like to thank Green Hills Software for funding our trip to Regionals, and for their generous donation which helped fund our trip to the World Finals.
1997-98: I trained a team for Cornell which competed in the Greater New York Regional Contest. We got third place; SUNY Stony Brook got first, and Queens College got second. The contest was held at the U S Military Academy at West Point, NY.
We would like to thank Green Hills Software for funding our trip to Regionals.
1996-97: I trained a team for Cornell which competed in the Greater New York Regional Contest. We got second place. The contet was held at Manhattan College in Bronx, NY.
We would like to thank Green Hills Software for funding our trip to Regionals.
1995-96: As a senior, I was on the Virginia Tech programming team, which won the 1995 Mid-Atlantic Regional Contest, and got 9th place at the 1996 International Contest.
- A Virginia Tech press release announces our achievement.
- A list of all the regions and participants.

Cornell Programming Competitions

Each year, I run two local programming contests at Cornell. They were sponsored by the ACSU. I used to maintain the ACSU contest page, but David Kempe has taken over. It contains the rules for the contest, as well as the problems and solutions for previous competitions.

Other Programming Contests

The best collection of programming contest links that I know of is the Programming Contest Problems Archive. This has links to ACM, IOI, USACO, and many other contests.

The AMC ICPC Problem Set Archive has 700 old ACM problems.

Ed Karrles has an alphabetical list of old ACM problems.

The International Obfuscated C Code Contest is not a programming contest like the previous ones listed, but it's always fun to read the winning entries.

Back to my home page.

Last updated 19 October 2000. E-mail me with comments or corrections.