TO: Computer Science Club Members
Our next meeting will be at 7:00 pm on Thursday, September 12th in Reeve 214. Dan has the pumpkin for this meeting. The main purpose of this meeting is to learn about various upcoming events (particularly Reflections|Projections and the ACM ICPC) and the pumpkin and to sign up for them. After this is all done, show and tell will commence, where we can show off anything cool we've done to our computers!
Here is the abbreviated bulletized list:
(1) Officer Reports
(2) What is 'the pumpkin?' Why do we have it? Sign up!
(3) What is Reflections|Projections? Sign up!
(4) What is the ACM International Computer Programming Competition? Sign up!
(5) Eat pumpkin provided by Dan
(6) Show & Tell - show off your computers and your programs!
(7) Leave, thank you!
A little more detail down here for anybody who might not be able to attend our meeting...
Reflections|Projections, briefly, is a conference hosted by the University of Illinois in Champaign. They feature speakers on various Computer Science topics (including, generally, a keynote speaker), a mech-programming competition called "MechMania", and more! In the past our food has pretty much been handled at the conference, and we get "free" shirts (one for Reflections|Projections, usually another if you compete in MechMania.) General registration is $10, plus hotel/travel costs (hotel usually costs about $40-$50 for both nights if we split the rooms up amongst a lot of people.) I am unsure, at this point, to what extent the CS department will be able to sponsor us on this, so assume (for now) that you will be on your own to pay for this. This event will take place from Friday, October 18th to Sunday, October 20th. Expect to take off from your classes on Friday, as we'll want to leave early; We'll be returning late on Sunday as well.
The ACM ICPC, (International Computer Programming Competition), briefly, is a competition sponsored by the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM), an international programming society, for computer programmers around the world. Think you're a top-notch programmer? This is the competition you want to compete in, then. Up to two teams from our campus can compete, with three people on each team. Each team gets one computer, a set of approximately 8-10 problems, and 5 hours to solve as many problems as possible. The speed at which you solve problems is also gauged (faster teams rank higher), and you get sanctioned in time if you turn in a program that does not work. Speedy completion of accurately-running programs is key! The competition takes place on Saturday, November 9th. Expect to spend about 9:00/10:00 am to 6:00 or 7:00 pm on this competition. Food will be provided for supper after the competition is completed. Last year our top team took 6th place regionally, and two years ago we placed 5th regionally. We have done even better in the more-distant past. Those teams that place high regionally are welcomed to the finals, where they compete against teams from around the world. Do you have what it takes? ;)
Show & Tell - Have you modified your case in a particularly interesting way? Have you created a program so cool that you can't wait to show it off to us? I hope so, because that's what Show & Tell is for! We'd like to see what you've done before as programmers, and also like to see what we might do in the future as programmers ourselves. Thanks!
Thank you!
--Jeff Lucas
CS Club President