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| Sunday, 3 October 2004 |
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Programmed to win by Ranga Kamaladasa
The 16th International Olympiad for Informatics got underway in Athens, Greece on September 11. Sri Lanka sent a contingent of four special young talented individuals along with their team leaders to Athens. Their assignment: to represent the country competitive with the most pre-eminent young computer programmers of the world. Their ambition: do their very best. And at the end of the Olympiad they did better 'than do their best' The team emerged winning one Gold and three bronze medals, earning Sri Lanka the 11th place out of 87 countries which took part. Parinda Jayasiri, the Gold Medallist of the team was ranked 17th best out of the 348 who participated in the Olympiad. Led by Dr. Gihan Wickremanayake, Head of Dept. Software Engineering, University of Colombo and Nayana Somaratna a medical student from University of Kelaniya, the team consisted of Parinda Jayasiri- a Grade 12 student from Royal College (Colombo), Chethiya Abeysinghe - a Grade 12 student from Maliyadeva College (Kurunegala), Sandaruwan Gunathilake - a Grade 13 student from Sivali Central College (Ratnapura), and Harshana Dantanarayana - a first year engineering undergraduate from the University of Moratuwa. The team was trained at the Colombo University School of Computing (UCSC), by a team of volunteers under the guidance of the Main Organising Committee and the Team Leaders. Chosen from the online programming competitions and island-wide written competitions held by the UCSC they had undergone heavy eight hour training sessions held on weekends, aimed at improving their knowledge as well as their creativity in solving real-world problems. "We were given three questions to do in five hours," says Sandaruwan explaining how the competition was conducted. "They were real world problems, so they were more than one solution to a question. When had to write the program in the fastest and simplest Algorithm. Usually if the execution of the program takes even a second longer than the stipulated time, it means the program is hopeless." The competitors were given three GHz P4 machines with 512 cache and 512MB of DDR RAM, which could be run on Window XP or Linux. They were given the freedom to write their programs on Pascal, C or C++, which promoted the skill of solving problems rather than testing the contestant's conventional programming techniques. "The exam we faced can't be compared to any other exam held in Sri Lanka," says Harshana, who was placed 4th in A/L Maths stream 2003. "It didn't contain any question which is even slightly close to a previous examination question. That way, they let us improvise new creations of our own so that a great deal of our creativity is tested. Getting an island rank in the local A'Ls is quite easy, compared to getting a medal in this Olympiad. And for that I'm really happy." He went on to describe the various qualities of the questions saying that some questions were made so that the fraction of thinking needed is less, but when it came to the programming and development part, things got tough. The other types of questions which are his personal favourite were the ones that need 'big thinking' yet need much smaller programming codes. "The other thing we noticed was that unlike the 'bright' students in Sri Lanka, who are practically workaholics, the students from other countries don't really study that frantically," says Harshana adding "Most of them engage in sports, and some play various kinds of musical instruments as well. A good student in Sri Lanka is someone who goes to school everyday, someone who buries himself in books. But in America it's totally the other way around. They're the one's who go to school often, they're the ones who don't study that crazily. All they have in them is the ability to innovate." Given his four years of experience in representing Sri Lanka at the Informatics Olympiad Harshana's views and opinions are not to be considered as passing remarks. According to him, countries like USA, China and Russia who gained the top ranks at the Olympiad have a more liberal kind of education system, where calculus and other higher mechanical math techniques are omitted from the syllabus. Instead they concentrate on things like Geometry and Iulear Algorithms, which are mathematical concepts rather than just plain equations. It's not merely the student-centered system, the subject content must also change if Sri Lanka is to achieve new heights in future Informatics and Math Olympiads," he says. "Most Sri Lankans think that doing something extra-curricular would ruin their studies," adds Sandaruwan. "But that's not the case. Here we learn to do something completely on our own, and that helps a lot in our school work as well. The best example is that all previous IOI participants from Sri Lanka have entered a local University." The Guys also talk about the fun and excitement they had in Greece, with the eight-day journey dishing up some interesting surprises. The facilities they say, were great as they stayed at the IOI village which was previously the Olympic media village. They had even got the opportunity to witness some of the fireworks of the Para Olympics, from where they stayed. They went on educational trips on boat rides to a couple islands, to the world's most famous planetarium and even to a Fun park. The guys had really enjoyed the outings but say they spent most of the time they were just playing cards by themselves, probably to ease the pressure of the upcoming competition. "The most interesting thing for me was that I got to meet different kinds of people from around the world," says Parinda. "We learned a lot about other cultures and their ways of interacting. The Swiss students were the friendliest, students from USA and also South Africa were friendly, but the British students for some reason were not that friendly." "I think one of the main reasons for holding this competition is to bring together different cultures of the world," says Chethiya who is somewhat disappointed for missing the silver by 10 points. "But the best part is one gets to represent ones own country, and that's the greatest thing about being a part of this team." "We had a lot fun," continues Chethiya. "We played a lot of games, especially football with the other students, and interacted a lot. From all the different cultures, the Russians were the most distinguishing. They were not like the others in anyway, and because of that they were easily noticed. They even counted differently, beginning with the little finger rather than their thumbs."However the guys did face difficulties. The food in Greece they found was not that appetizing. Sandaruwan laughs heartily saying that their Deputy team leader Nayana, had to throw away most of the dishes he chose. Their lips chapping and their faces full of suns cream they had to face the glaring sun at day as well as the cold at night. "Thanks to these competitions I've been to Korea, USA and now Greece," said Harshana. "But to tell you the truth, the only country that I can live in is Sri Lanka!" |
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