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10.09
How
Winning the IEEEXtreme Programming Challenge
Shaped My Future
By Manel Martinez
I started programming early in
life — at age seven — when I received my first
computer as a Christmas present. It was a
wonderful Amstrad CPC with an eight-bit
processor and a color screen. I had asked for a
video game console, but my parents thought a
computer was a better choice as it could be a
tool for my education… and indeed it was!
I wanted to play with my
computer but I had only a few games, so I began
reading the big book the computer came with and
began writing my own games. It didn’t take long
before I knew everything in that book, so I
began visiting the local library and I read
almost every book there about 1980s computer
software and hardware. I tried everything on the
computer and I continued developing my computer
skills on a self-taught basis until I got to
college.
So imagine my surprise, when
eight hours into the 2006 IEEEXtreme 24 Hour
Programming Challenge, my team received a
problem that required an old computer — an
Amstrad CPC — to solve it! I needed only 10
minutes to remember how to use my childhood
computer and 10 additional minutes to code the
program. Knowing how to use that old computer
helped my team win the Challenge!
We had begun the contest at 1:00
a.m. local time and by 6:00 a.m. my teammates —
Guillem Palou and Josep Angel Herrero — and I
had solved most of the problems. The final
surprise problem — a song — was masterfully
solved by Guillem.
While I wasn’t the fastest
algorithm solver on my team, my strength came
from my ability to find unusual solutions to
difficult problems. I began participating in
programming contests while I was studying
communications engineering at Universitat
Politècnica de Catalunya (UPC) in Barcelona,
Spain. I began to have moderate success in
programming contests and I realized I needed
much more knowledge to be competitive, so I
began studying computer science at UPC too.
Our prize for winning the
Challenge was a trip to an IEEE conference. We
chose to attend the 2006 International
Conference on Advanced Robotics (ICAR), mainly
because it was one of a few conferences that fit
our schedules, but that conference guided my
career path.
I was finishing my studies and
knew I wanted to pursue my Ph.D., but I didn't
know in which field. I loved algorithm research,
but I also loved hardware and embedded systems.
Attending ICAR allowed me to see firsthand the
best robotics research and I decided that I
wanted to pursue my Ph.D. in that field. I’m
currently a student in the Robotics Institute at
Carnegie Mellon University working with some of
the best engineers in the world.
I strongly suggest that everyone
with an interest in computer science participate
in the IEEEXtreme Challenge every year. To win
you need to be good, but also really lucky. This
Challenge isn’t just about winning though, it’s
about personal development.
During the Challenge, you will
receive some algorithmic problems and some
puzzles that can be solved with imagination and
a computer. You will learn that a computer is
not going to solve the problems, it is you who
must solve the problems and the computer is just
a tool to help you solve these problems.
After the contest is over, take
time to understand all the problems and search
for any solutions you did not get correct. I’ve
participated in computer-related contests for
six years and I learn a lot during each contest.
If you have a team with a
methodical team member, a mathematics expert and
a crazy thinker, you have a good chance of
winning! Be ready for the unexpected, have fun
and do your best!
To learn how to participate in
this year’s IEEEXtreme 24 Hour Programming
Challenge, which will be held on 24 October
2009, visit
http://www.ieee.org/web/membership/students/
scholarshipsawardscontests/ieeextreme.html.
Manel
Martinez is an IEEE student member in the
Robotics Institute at Carnegie Mellon University
in Pittsburgh, Penn.
Comments may be submitted to
todaysengineer@ieee.org.
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