belowthebelt's blog

By belowthebelt, history, 7 years ago, In English

Hello, Codeforces community!

Link: https://www.hackerearth.com/january-clash-17/problems/

I want to invite all of you to participate in January Clash at HackerEarth. The contest has been running for 9 hours already, so we apologize for this late post. But, there's still a lot of time left: 15 hours to go. Let's see if we're going to see a change of the top-scorers on the leaderboard. The contest duration is 24 hours, so there should be some comfortable time for every timezone. :)

There are six tasks in the problemset. Five of them are standard algorithmic problems with partial solutions allowed — you get points for every test that your solution passed. And the final task is an approximate problem — your score for this task depends on how good your solution is comparing to current best solution.

Yury_Bandarchuk is the author of this problemset. He's done a great job preparing the problem-set. And I hope you guys will enjoy the questions prepared. niyaznigmatul worked on this contest as the tester and editorialist — he is responsible for taking care of the problems. And not surprisingly, he has done a commendable job for testing the problem-set. I hope you guys will not be disappointed.

Good luck!

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By belowthebelt, history, 7 years ago, In English

Hello, Codeforces community!

Link: https://www.hackerearth.com/november-clash-16/

I want to invite all of you to participate in November Clash at HackerEarth. The contest is scheduled today, November 12. The contest duration is 24 hours, so there should be some comfortable time for every timezone. :)

There will be six tasks in the problemset. Five of them will be standard algorithmic problems with partial solutions allowed — you get points for every test that your solution passed. And the final task is an approximate problem — your score for this task depends on how good your solution is comparing to current best solution.

KuchumovIlya is the author of this problemset. He's done great job preparing the problem-set. And I hope you guys will enjoy the questions prepared. I_love_Tanya_Romanova worked on this contest as the tester and editorialist — he is responsible for taking care of the problems. And not surprisingly, he has done a commendable job for testing the problem-set. I hope you guys will not be disappointed.

Good luck!

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By belowthebelt, history, 7 years ago, In English

Hello Codeforces community,

November Easy '16 will start in a while (check your time zone). The duration of the contest is 3 hours.

You will be given 6 algorithmic problems of various difficulty. All problems will have partial scoring that is, points for each test case passed. Thus, everybody should find something for themselves. Getting full points on all 6 problems should be fun for everyone. Don't hesitate in scoring partial points in order to score as many points as possible if you want to get to the top.

Problems were prepared by niyaznigmatul. Errichto is the tester and an editorialist for this contest. So you don't have to worry about the quality of the problem set. The problems are interesting.

Importantly, we want to thank lightning, iilnar, FireZi, dusja.ds, and disa who helped in preparation of the contest and making the contest in a good shape. I also want to thank r3gz3n for being around to help in handling the issues with the contest and the system.

There are prizes — t-shirts and Amazon gift cards. And the eternal glory of winning a contest, of course.

Enjoy the contest. Good luck!

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By belowthebelt, history, 8 years ago, In English

Hello, Codeforces community!

I want to invite all of you to participate in August Clash at HackerEarth. The contest is scheduled on August, 13. The contest duration is 24 hours, so there should be some comfortable time for every timezone. :)

There will be six tasks in the problemset. Five of them will be standard algorithmic problems with partial solutions allowed — you get points for every test that your solution passed. And the last task is an approximate problem — your score for this task depends on how good your solution is comparing to current best solution.

SmallBoy and MadNick are the authors of this problemset. They've done a great job preparing the problem-set. And I hope you guys will enjoy the questions prepared by them. I would personally say that the problemset is extremely interesting, We also hope that several problems will be not too hard for beginners. (Hint: partial scoring) Some tasks are challenging enough to make this contest interesting for more experienced contestants.

Sumeet.Varma worked on this contest as the tester and editorialist — he is responsible for taking care of the problems. And not surprisingly, he has done a commendable job for testing the problem-set. I hope you guys will not be disappointed. I was working on this contest as the moderator, and tester for the system(s). :)

As usual, here is one more reason for you to participate in this contest:

Top5 of leaderboard will also receive some nice prizes:

  1. $100 Amazon gift card + HackerEarth T-shirt
  2. $75 Amazon gift card + HackerEarth T-shirt
  3. $50 Amazon gift card + HackerEarth T-shirt
  4. HackerEarth T-shirt
  5. HackerEarth T-shirt

Good luck to everybody — hope to see you at the scoreboard.

Update:
Here are the winners:
1. mugurelionut — 600 points.
2. anta — 599.215 points.
3. LHiC — 562.644 points.
4. azneyes — 558.818 points.
5. ceilks — 544.81 points.

Congratulations to the top 5, great performance! :)

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By belowthebelt, history, 8 years ago, In English

Hello, Codeforces Community!

I invite you to June Easy '16. The contest starts on Wednesday, June 1, 2016 16:00 UTC and will run for 3 hours. The difficulty of the contest will be similar to a div-2 CF round. The problems have been set by Yury_Bandarchuk,

A lot of you can manage to solve all the 6 problems in 3 hours, for sure. The order of the problems will be random. Each problem is worth 100 points but scoring is partial so try to pass as many tests as possible!

Also, I want to thank Prateek Xsquare — he is the tester and editorialist for the contest. It was amazing to work with both of them.

Link: https://www.hackerearth.com/june-easy-16/

Enjoy the contest, guys. See you all on the hall of fame!

P.S. There is an exciting feature release related to our code editor before this challenge. Hint: Ever wondered how fast you could get an AC if your favourite language and template is preloaded in the editor?

PPS: We know about the clash with CF-round. But, Easy has always been happening on the first day of the month, and we could not do anything this time to avoid this clash. We apologize in advance for that. We'll make sure to avoid such conflicts in future!

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By belowthebelt, history, 8 years ago, In English

Hello Codeforces Community,

Welcome to our first ever Long Contest!

We're glad to invite you to participate in April Circuits. It starts on Saturday, April 23, 2016 21:00 IST. The contest will run for 8 days.

The problem-set consists of 7 traditional algorithmic tasks and 1 approximation task. For traditional algorithmic tasks, you will receive points for every test case your solution passes. For the approximation task, your score depends on the best solution in the contest so far. All tasks will contain subtasks which are designed to be approachable by beginners.

Problems are prepared by Errichto and johnasselta has tested them. So, you can expect the problems to be in a good shape, and quality. :)

The contest will be rated. It is a new line of contests and we recommend to read the contest rules beforehand here. This contest is a completely experimental contest, but that has got nothing to do with the problem-set which you guys will be getting, which will be a quality, standard problem-set. Though, the problems aren't extremely hard and strong participants should be able to solve all of them. So they can fight with each other on the approximate problem.

From the next month itself, we can see some major changes happening to this line of contest, with the major focus on upsolving. Wait for it! inserts thug life meme

Oh, by the way, the top 5 participants will receive HackerEarth T-shirt and top 3 of them will also be awarded cash prizes:

First: $100 Amazon gift card.
Second: $75 Amazon gift card.
Third: $50 Amazon gift card.

Good luck to all the contestants!

--

The contest is over! I hope you enjoyed it. Congratulations to the top 5, great work. Which one was your favorite problem from the set, by the way? :)

  1. Carsten Eilks
  2. Catalin Stefan Tiseanu
  3. Rafael Bocquet
  4. eatmore
  5. Nerevar

It's weird that the top 3 do not have a CF profile. (Or, I failed to find their profile.) So, I've added HE links for their profile.

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By belowthebelt, history, 8 years ago, In English

Hello Codeforces Community,

HackerEarth invites you to a AI type contest — Bot Challenge. The contest will start on March 11, 20:00 IST and will last for almost a week.

You have to build a bot that plays a two-player game (like Tic-tac-toe or Chess) with a bot built by another user. At the end of challenge, your bot will play in a tournament against all other bots, and the bot that wins the tournament will be declared the winner.

Also, while the contest is running, you can challenge other people who have submitted their bots to play against you.

The link to the contest: https://www.hackerearth.com/battle-of-bots-3/

You can practice in previous Bot contests(#1, #2, India-Hacks), to understand more about the problem statement and the format of the contest.

Fun fact: Gullesnuffs has won all the Bot challenges as of now. Will he be finally dethroned? I doubt.

You can check out this gameplay between Gullesnuffs and another contestant in the India-Hacks Bot challenge. Click on the replay button there to watch it.

Have fun!

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By belowthebelt, history, 8 years ago, In English

Hello, Codeforces Community!

I invite you to January Easy '16 today at 2130 IST. The difficulty of the contest will be similar to div2 CF round. The problems have been set by harshil, kunal93 and I.

A lot of you can manage to solve all the 6 problems in 3 hours, for sure. The order of the problems will be random. Each problem is worth 100 points but scoring is partial so try to pass as many tests as possible!

Importantly, I want to thank Kamil (Errichto) — he is the tester and editorialist for the contest. It was amazing to work with him. He is, hands down, the most active setter/tester as of now — and an extremely productive one, too. I hope he was able to tolerate me. :)

Link: https://www.hackerearth.com/january-easy-16/

Enjoy the contest, see you all on the hall of fame!

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By belowthebelt, history, 8 years ago, In English

Hey, Codeforces community!

I want to invite you guys to the second edition of the Artificial Intelligence Challenge this week — Battle of Bots #2.

In the Battle of Bots contest, there will only be one problem, which is a game which your bot has to play. You will be given a two-player game (For instance, a game like Tic-tac-toe or Chess!) and you will have to write a bot that can play that game against other bots. (And beat the other one!)

Your bot has to understand all the rules of the game and play it's move against the opponent. You will be given 7 days to write your bot, after the challenge ends your bot will be played in a tournament against all other bots, and the bot that wins the tournament will be declared the winner.

Prizes to be won:
- 1st Prize: $100 Amazon gift card
- First Runner Up: $80 Amazon gift card
- Second Runner Up: $60 Amazon gift card

Top 5 winners will receive HackerEarth T-shirts as well.

Registration Link: https://www.hackerearth.com/battle-of-bots-2/

Date and Time: 13th November, 8 pm IST.

--

The winners of the previous Battle of Bots are:

  1. Gullesnuffs

  2. uwi

  3. CatalinT

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By belowthebelt, history, 9 years ago, In English

Hello, Codeforces community!

Firstly, I want to apologize to all of you for not posting about Code Monk previously. I realize now that it could have probably helped a lot of people who are beginners to competitive programming, but anyway, I don't think it is still late to introduce it! :)

Let me tell you about Code Monk. I was working with HackerEarth for a while in this summer, where MDCCXXIX and I came up with this idea.

The truth is that the Internet is full of learning resources for anyone who wants to become a better programmer. However, we felt, that there was no single place, where one could find information and practice as well as on the topics required to feel confident about a lot of topics. This is one of the reasons why many programmers in the pursuit of learning competitive programming attain a level of saturation after a while. They face difficulty in consuming content from different sources.

This led us to start Code Monk – a weekly series of tutorials on topics, starting from the basics of algorithm and gradually moving on to more complicated concepts. Every tutorial is followed by a short programming challenge to test your understanding!

That's how this page was created: Code Monk :) — you guys can take a look at whatever topics have been covered already on this page directly. I know, the categories are not very well arranged as of now. There's a lot to be done on that page. Don't worry, the changes will keep happening!

--

But, here I want to invite you guys to the contest which begins in an hour. (Sorry for such a short notice!) The contest is based on Minimum Spanning Trees. The link to the contest: Code Monk: Minimum Spanning Tree

The setter and the translator of the contest is: shef_2318 and the tester and the editorialist is: I_love_Tanya_Romanova. They've worked extremely hard on making this contest a unique experience for people who want to strengthen their concepts of Minimum Spanning Trees.

Good luck to everyone, and have fun! :)

PS: Feedback / ideas / criticism — everything is welcome.

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By belowthebelt, history, 9 years ago, In English

Hello everyone,

I want to invite you to participate in HackerEarth July Easy Contest '15. It is 3 hour long contest scheduled on July 1. Check your timezone: http://hck.re/iZy4VB

The link to the contest: https://www.hackerearth.com/july-easy-15/

The problem set consists of 6 algorithmic tasks with partial solutions allowed — you get points for every test that your solution passes. The problem set was prepared by me, tested by FatalEagle and the editorials are presented by pkacprzak.

Top 5 beginners of the leaderboard will also get a HackerEarth T-shirt!

Good luck, everyone!

Update1: The contest has been on for 30 minutes now, guys! I hope everyone enjoys the storyline of the problemset, too. :)

Update2: Editorials to all the problems are now live!

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By belowthebelt, 9 years ago, In English

Hello, everyone!

I want to invite you to participate in May Medium Contest at HackerEarth — which is called May Hem. The Contest is scheduled on 30th May. The duration of the contest is 2 hours. It's a play on a word that denotes chaos — hopefully, in a good way for this contest.

So, go for it, give it your best shot! There are amazing prizes to be won!

Link to the contest: http://hck.re/sUY9S1

sentinel45 is author and editorialist of this problemset, while lamphanviet is the tester for this contest.

Top 5 of leaderboard will also receive prizes:

$50 Amazon gift card + HackerEarth T-shirt
$30 Amazon gift card + HackerEarth T-shirt
$20 Amazon gift card + HackerEarth T-shirt
HackerEarth T-shirt
HackerEarth T-shirt

Good luck, everyone! :)

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