Team: IIUC Stubbornz (Replace the 'z' with 's', cuz it's changed now :))
Members: Me (Tafhim Ul Islam), Shayhan Ameen, Rakibul Hassan.
Was thinking a lot before posting something like this. Because we lost this position on the immediate contest that followed this in CUET. Anyways, it was our first success in a real time Inter University Contest. Arranged by my own varsity at our main Campus in the city outskirts, Kumira. I always had dreamed of winning a place like this in our home ground, never thought the hot summer day was gonna break it's sweat like this :).
The problem set mostly consisted of Ad-Hoc problems. As far as my skill is concerned, I have solved about 200 of this type at UVa. So it was an easy set for me. Wish we could solve some more, that would include the algorithmic ones, solving which sounds really cool.
At the initial phase we had gained the first position by solving two problems. The CUET team restlessly followed our trail to find the easy ones. By the time they were solving 2 problems we had already 3 ACs on our side. We were hungry for more, ravaging through the problem set trying to find something that was waiting for the bash. We were trying some tough ones and I totally forgot about a problem that I initially guessed was in my Expertise range, Strings. My team was trying out 2 other problems and with 3 hours gone and still stuck with 5th position, my heart was hammering for a 4th one, and it was definitely there, I just couldn't see it. Right then I saw a 2 page problem, name inspired by the Dan Brown novel "The lost symbol". I almost jumped, a sure AC now. I immediately dominated the workstation and read the problem statement and prepared string template at the same time. I didn't even read the intro parts, just what to do. I coded and it came up with correct answers. Submitted, "Wrong Answer". Changed some values and again "WA". I almost broke down, right before deciding to read the problem again. And there it was, right at the first paragraph, "distinct", in clear bold letters. I shouted and modified the code, some small debugging and Submit. "Yes", and we shouted like mad guys, I almost skipped a beat. We were in the second position. We tried some more problems, and reached one in the end but the time ran out.
In the end, we came 2nd. It was our first big success and we celebrated a lot. This one contest has changed our outlook towards our team a lot and has increased our performance dramatically. InshAllah, IIUC contest arena is gonna change again. And this time the crown will be for Stubborns.
Just 3 days after that we performed in CUET IUPC 2011 and got 7th position. Though it was not as expected, we definitely can say that our performance has increased dramatically.
Let's hope Allah (SWT) keeps his graceful eyes over us.
