BlogCadre - SEARCC '05

Another Sydney Photo

Thu, 20 Oct 2005 03:58:23 +0000

One more photo from Sydney - this is a panorama of Circular Quay, surrounded by the Harbour Bridge and the Opera House. I like it :)

Sydney Harbour

Thu, 20 Oct 2005 03:50:29 +0000

I finally got around to installing the stitching software on a computer, and stitching together those panorama shots that I took in Sydney.

Here's a REALLY nice one of the harbour.

ISSC 2005 Photos

Sun, 02 Oct 2005 02:11:50 +0000

Well, I now have a photo album available if people want to see some shots of the SEARCC competition.

It's available at http://issc05.ne1.net

SEARCC '05 Wrapup

Thu, 29 Sep 2005 06:04:15 +0000

Well, I sit here after Thursday's comp.

Not much to say here - we led right up until the last 5 minutes, but fell victim to the ISSC's marking scheme. We came last due to submitting our last question incorrectly - we failed on one test case - if it were correct, we would have won. It wasn't, so we came dead last. New Zealand won.

Oh well...

Photos are up now - so you can view those - all taken with my new camera won in ACPC - it does Night Photography very well, which is good. Take a look at my shots of the Harbour Bridge. Very nice.

Not much more to say today.

--Chris

Sydney Harbour Bridge

Thu, 29 Sep 2005 05:59:40 +0000

What visit to Sydney is complete without viewing the Harbour Bridge and the Opera House? This was taken from the Freeway above Circular Quay, with a 3 second shutter. Nice. There's a panorama including the Opera House coming later - I actually need time to stitch them together. Oh well.

Pro Coders (that's us)

Thu, 29 Sep 2005 05:56:38 +0000

That's us at the trial competition. We're pretty pro. We came third that day.

Australian ISSC Team, 2005

Thu, 29 Sep 2005 05:53:25 +0000

This is our team for 2005: From Left:

Atif Chaudhry, Ben Vance, James Bungard, some lecturer from USYD, the new president of SEARCC, Myself, Jet Holloway, Alex Davies

Bondi Beach on a cold day

Thu, 29 Sep 2005 05:49:40 +0000

No, that's not me. We went to Bondi Beach on Tuesday, and one of our team members decided that he would go for a swim. Funny.

Darling Harbour by Night (featuring Randolph)

Thu, 29 Sep 2005 05:46:16 +0000

Mr Hudson's Pet Reindeer, Randolph, sitting on a pillar in Darling Harbour, Sydney. Taken with a long exposure.

Alex gets a question right in training,

Thu, 29 Sep 2005 05:43:15 +0000

Alex is having fun coding his solution to the question.

Trial Run

Wed, 28 Sep 2005 03:01:07 +0000

Well, I sit here in the side lab from the one we were actually doing the trial comp in, here at USYD.

Australia 1 (that's us) went off to a shaky start, which involved me blacking out due to lack of sleep (damned cinema), we ended up solving all 4 problems successfully with only 2 faulty submissions.

That gave us a score of 442. Hong Kong (featuring one member from last year's victorious team) are the team to beat, with a grand total of 458.

Tuesday and Sightseeing

Tue, 27 Sep 2005 21:39:44 +0000

Well, I'm back at the Terminal on Wednesday morning, and as such, it's time for me to start blogging about the previous day's events.

We were up by 7:30, buffet breakfast - very nice. For most of the morning, the Australian Teams were training for the competition (until about 11). We started sightseeing at about 11:30, on a bus to Darling Harbour. From there we took a cruise out to the Heads and Back - this involved going under the bridge twice, which was quite an experience. It's a lot bigger than I thought it would have been. Lunch was OK.

News and Stuff for Monday (being posted on Tuesday)

Mon, 26 Sep 2005 21:55:40 +0000

Well, it's Tuesday morning, just after breakfast, and I'm in the hotel lobby. I'm on pay-per-use internet (still cheaper than Bigpond), so I have to be brief.

On Monday, the day consisted of flying out of Hobart at about 10. In-flight entertainment was fairly good (haven't flown on a proper airline in ages), an episode of Enough Rope with Andrew Denton. That was moderately interesting.

We touched down at Sydney just after Midday, and were met by Sam Burrell, chief guy of the ACS, who helped us meet up with the rest of the team. We got our new cameras, one model up from the ones we were promised. Yay! 6.2MP, and the quality's really good. We turned up at the hotel, and walked around the back for lunch. It was big. Everyone was stuffed afterwards. So, luckily we had a walk to Sydney Uni to help us walk off the Lasagne :).

Last Day before SEARCC '05

Sun, 25 Sep 2005 02:39:28 +0000

Well, it's just over 10 months since last year's SEARCC International Schools' Software Competition ended in Chennai, India. That was a good time - I recall it being one of the more interesting experiences of my life, and so I was very glad to be called up to the 2005 team to represent Australia.

Given that this year's comp is in Sydney, I doubt that it's going to be nearly as much of a culturally unique experience as compared with last year, but I still expect it to be fun. Meeting up with competitiors from last year (if we're lucky), seeing a part of my own country that I've never seen will hopefully be enjoyable.