So here it is, now that the Bitwise 2k9 is over, everyone feels so relieved and obviously happy. Everything went smoothly and happily. There was no hitch (well, compared to what are generally expected, we had the minimal of all the problems). And all the while when the contestants were busy cracking the questions, we were having fun in our own way.
Not just in India, but anywhere in the world, you’ll never find an event start on time. So why should we be an exception [:P]. Now since Bitwise is an international competition in which participants from all over the world take part, I put up a timer on the right hand sidebar, displaying the server time. This time would be used by the contestants to synchonise their watches. The event was to be begin at 1220 hours IST. And I was prepared, in the event of us getting delayed, to slightly change the server time – not that we finally needed it. The event started right on time. Actually we were all ready for the launch ten minutes earlier. The countdown began and just when the timer showed 1220 on our site, we released the problems.
The response was enormous !! The server was heavily overloaded. Many complaints started pouring in about the site not loading up. But in a matter of few anxious minutes, these complaints died down, and we took a sigh of relief.
Just when we were all getting into our new roles of maintaining the system and responding to all the queries, the first shock hit us ! No, it was no fault, no breakdown of system and certainly not of the server going offline. A team had actually solved a question, easiest though, and scored full. We couldn’t believe it. Naresh (Shenoy K) actually pulled out the file from the system, compiled it manually and checked with the test cases himself to make sure that the evaluator had not made an error. The problems team were bewildered. They wondered if their problems were not as good enough as they thought earlier. There were a few nervous smiles, trying to defend their claim that the questions are indeed though.
We convinced ourselves that this was just one-off instance and that not all the teams will find the same question this easy to solve, that perhaps it was more by luck that talent that this team had cracked the first question in ten minutes. This we did only to be proved wrong in another quater of an hour. Submissions for the same question started pouring in and there were quite a good number of teams with full scores. We just kept our fingers crossed.
But then that did remain a one-off question. Apparently the second question had been changed just hours before the question. The original question was too tough to be solved in such short time, and the problems team decided to put up a modified version which was easier, evident by the fact that the score was halved. The second question, the one to be solved first, carried just 75 marks, while the other questions were rated for 200s and 300s.
India vs. Sri Lanka cricket match was being aired the same time. We got busy watching the match while at the same time answering the doubts of the contestants. Ghoda (Birendar S Tiwana) had this brainwave the previous day of letting the teams add us on their gtalk id and contacting us over the IM in case of any doubts. The idea was a hit considering the number of queries I had to answer. I was asked all sort of things – from being pestered for hints, to suggestions that the questions were too tough to be solved by a final year student of engineering, to being told of that the sample cases we provided were wrong !
There were a few highlights of chatting that I would like to mention. A girl came online – nita..sharma.niit (obviously name changed to protect identity). She mentioned that the Enigma quiz was a great idea, and that she was enjoying it. Immediately Tharki (Arpit Kumar) got working. He told her that the whole of enigma was his brainchild (he mentioned it was of Arpit’s as a third person), and proceeded to give her his email id so that she could contact him to thank him personally. And she did !!! Her next message was – thanks for the id. I have added him on GTalk. Tharki left the station and returned to his computer to attend to more pressing business [:P]. Apparently they have become good friends.
We had lots of fun answering the queries and chatting away. We dealt sternly with a few guys, having to tell them that we provide no hints and loved talking to a few who challenged our problem makers – a few of them really made Sudip (Roy) and co. ponder over the boundary conditions. Only a minor changes were made to one or two questions.
Aritro (Aritra Sen) was the server admin making all the changes to the webpages. Tension clearly showed when he occasionally lashed out at anybody suggesting he was slow in updating the webpage (which he was not). Mallu Da (Vinu Rajshekhar) was the busy man firing away sql queries when we had to sometimes manually check if the file submitted contained malicious code. Naresh and Mallu were our goto guys when in doubt. Akshit (Sharma) and KT (Kaustabh Tripathi) ensured that none of us were hungry. They arranged for snacks and lunch, half of which they ate themselves. Shashi (Narayan) took charge of the feedback. Ghoda was the responsible person, always reminding us that we should not toy/abuse/insult/behave irresponsibly with people while chatting, that we should seriously answer their queries and never mislead them – this suggestion was too hard to follow. Karishma (Kapadia), Nisha (Kiran) and Chuski (Varun Sharma) were there as well, taking rounds in helping everybody out. The problem team members Anvesh (Komuravelli), Ashish (V), Bhuyan (Pramit K), Sumeet (Singal), Ruteesh (K) were obviously present to help us answer the queries.
In all, it was a great day. Everyone was tired by the end. I actually dozed off six hours after the start of the competition. Arindam (Sharma) had come in the evening afer his GATE exam. It was one of the best days of my stay in Kharagpur. Not having slept for almost 40 hours, I bid them goodbye and left for my room.
Popularity: 2% [?]
