In Competitive Programming, teams of three students solve and implement algorithmical riddles in limited time (usually five hours) using only one PC. Over the last year, the members of the CompProg student club honed their problem-solving skills to prepare for the annual Northwestern Europe Regional Contest (NWERC). Out of the 124 teams from over 60 universities only a few advance to the world finals. The HPI sent two teams and a coach to this year's NWERC which was held in Eindhoven (Netherlands) from November 15-17. The established HPI team Hexaflexagons slightly changed their roster to now include Niko Hastrich, Hans Gawendowicz and Daniel Stephan. The up-and-coming Hanso Platten team consists of Otto Kissig, Martin Taraz and Jonas Schmidt. In addition to the introductory lecture on Competitive Programming last semester, all six students attented a project seminar to prepare them for the more advanced algorithmical problems. The Hexaflexagons placed 31th, while the Hanso Platten achieved 75th place. Both teams performed very well considering that all but Hans and Daniel are Bachelor students and participated for the first time.
Results, problems, solutions and pictures can be found at the official NWERC website.
