Programming is not just about writing a code; it is all about the joy in solving a problem. Every problem has a solution to be explored. An exploration teaches us million things!
Here's my experience of participation on one of the awesome programming competitions across the world called IEEEXtreme !!!
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| IEEEXtreme - The 24 Hour Programming Competition |
With the very privilege of being an IEEE student member and a small knowledge about solving C and C++ questions in university exams, I have done registrations for the seventh edition of IEEEXtreme, with my IEEE mates. The competition happened on October 26, 2013. I came to know it is a non-stop 24-hour programming competition challenge happening across the globe.
Reading more things about the competition and past achievements made by by seniors, inspired me and made me enthusiastic about Xtreme ! The prizes for Xtreme winners are also unique. There is much hype for the competition and I was waiting for the coding day.
And the day came!
But unfortunately, I was busy in the morning attending practical exams. Due to all the works, I was able to open my PC, and start for the competition only in the evening. Then, I realised half of the challenge was gone, by checking the updates made by my friends on social media. But, I backed up and made my mind to code for the rest of competition.
The HackerRank platform used for the competition is eXtremely awesome! We can code using multiple languages, and header files are provided by default.. we just need to simply code! nothing else.. The test cases are provided for every question and we can compile the code and get to know the results instantly. We are provided with points based on the number of test cases that we are able to solve!
The questions are interesting as well as realistic! They also test the analytic skills of the participants apart from their coding knowledge, which is really good. It usually takes time to go through the questions, but once we are clear with the inputs and outputs, there we go!
It took time for me to get familiar with the platform. By the time, I started cracking few questions. I was partially answering few questions and got suitable marks. Everytime, I answered a question there was an increase in the leaderboard as well. A new question is released in a frequent interval of time, and we can solve the old questions at any time until the competition ends.
It is also exciting to check the updates on social media by following IEEEXtreme Facebook page, where people make posts about the competition and share their ranks and pics. One such post by my friend inspired me, to work on a particular problem (AJ problem I guess), started working on it around mid-night. Able to crack up the question but I realised that different kinds of errors arise apart from the code, finally with the help of my proctor, I solved it and get a CENTUM score! Then, of course I too made a FB post :P
In my country(India), the programming competition got over by 5.30 AM in the morning, and I went to sleep late in the morning. Later, I checked my ranks. Went crazy as my team secured 2nd place across the University! But, I feel a lot of practise can move up on ranking list!
In the next three months, I received my first Xtreme T-shirt for participating in the competition :-D Then, by attending MD webinars on Xtreme, I also received cool vintage T-shirts!
Inspired by Xtreme, I have organized a programming competition in my Student Branch called 'Code Hunt' in which I have made real time questions. The event got a good response and I learned many things behind organizing an online event.
IEEEXtreme 8.0
It is time for IEEEXtreme 8.0 and I have registered and eagerly waiting for this year's programming challenge which will be happening on October 18th 2014! Watchout for the team NoCodesToCode..
All IEEE student members make the registrations here: https://xtreme.vtools.ieee.org/
Registration deadline: October 6, 2014
Please spread the word and the excitement of programming!
Thanks for reading. Let's Go Xtreme!!!
