ACM Regional Collegiate Programming Contest hosted at Stevens
HOBOKEN, N.J. — The Department of Computer Science at Stevens Institute of Technology co-hosted the 2004 Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) Regional Collegiate Programming Contest for the Greater New York Region on Nov. 14. Thirty teams with three contestants each were registered to compete at Stevens, with another 32 teams located at co-host Iona College in New Rochelle, N.Y.
To ensure that all contestants at both locations competed in an identical environment, Jan Schaumann of Stevens developed a bootable NetBSD Live CD providing the contest environment. The CD contained all the compilers and debuggers (gcc/g++ version 3.3, Sun JDK 1.4.2, GNU Ada version 3.4, GNU gdb version 5.3), a number of common editors (vi, vim, emacs, nedit), the window manager and all standard tools, as well as the PC2 Software System, mounting the home directories from a local NFS server.
This approach not only guaranteed equal contest circumstances for teams at both locations, but also allowed Stevens easily to restrict network usage to a private subnet and prevent access to unauthorized devices, while at the same time being unobtrusive enough to allow for a short setup and not require modifications to the existing workstations. All that needed to be done was to network the machines appropriately and to boot off the CD.
The day before the contest, the Computer Science Lab was closed to prepare for the setup. Adam Florence, Regional Contest Director, and Fred Pickel, one of the ACM Judges, helped test the setup and ensure that everything went smoothly as Stevens coordinated all communications (VPN connections for the PC2 software, video conferencing for the coaches meeting, etc.) with the people at Iona.
On Nov. 14, the contestants registered early in the morning and were allowed to test the setup until 11:00 a.m., before they were welcomed by Adam Florence in the auditorium. The contest itself started at 12:00 noon, synchronized with Iona College, and lasted for exactly five hours. During that time, volunteers helped distribute printouts, answer questions, and in general make the whole contest run smoothly.
Afterward, all contestants and their coaches again met in the auditorium to await the final results, as the judges were grading the final submissions. In the end, NYU took first place, Rutgers second, Columbia third, and one of Stevens’ own teams placed fourth.
Adam Florence and Fred Pickle agreed with Iona Contest Manager John Buck that everything went exceptionally smoothly. The ACM has expressed interest in using the NetBSD Live CD in future contests, owing to the simple and convenient setup it provides.
Jan Schaumann and Brian Moriarty, both System Administrators in the Department of Computer Science and both in charge of organizing the entire event at Stevens, said, “We wish to thank the volunteers who helped throughout both days and without whom holding the contest at Stevens would not have been possible. They are (in alphabetical order): Adam Aronson, Ryan Bender, Arup Datta, Lerna Ekmekcioglu, Michael Forde, Michael Gourlay, Brian Henderson, Prashanth Rallapalli Karanam, Bartosz J. Luczynski, and Robert Skutinsky.”
About Stevens Institute of Technology
Founded in 1870, Stevens Institute of Technology is one of the leading technological universities in the world dedicated to learning and research. Through its broad-based curricula, nurturing of creative inventiveness, and cross disciplinary research, the Institute is at the forefront of global challenges in engineering, science, and technology management. Partnerships and collaboration between, and among, business, industry, government and other universities contribute to the enriched environment of the Institute. A new model for technology commercialization in academe, known as Technogenesis®, involves external partners in launching business enterprises to create broad opportunities and shared value.
Stevens offers baccalaureates, master’s and doctoral degrees in engineering, science, computer science and management, in addition to a baccalaureate degree in the humanities and liberal arts, and in business and technology. The university has a total enrollment of 2,150 undergraduate and 3,500 graduate students, with about 250 full-time faculty. Stevens’ graduate programs have attracted international participation from China, India, Southeast Asia, Europe and Latin America. Additional information may be obtained from its web page at www.stevens.edu.
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