ETH Dethroned SWERC 2023-24

During the last weekend of January, two teams from ETH Zürich, led by coaches Ahmet and Bernhard, participated in the ICPC Southwestern Europe Regional Contest held in Paris. The contest included 108 teams from 65 institutions spanning France, Israel, Italy, Malta, Portugal, Spain, and Switzerland.

True to the name, the dETHroners(Theodor, Paula, and Michal) dethroned the SWERC, achieving the gold medal and first place with 11 solved problems. This marked a historic moment for ETH, as our last first-place finish was 13 years ago.

doublETHink(Jasmin, Chris, and Ema) solved 8 problems and narrowly missed the bronze medal due to a slight time penalty.

Besides, doublETHink were the first team to solve the problem J, while dETHroners accomplished the same feat for problem G.

This performance qualified the dETHroners for the upcoming ICPC European Championship in Prague this March and the World Finals in Astana this September.

1 hour and 36 minutes to the end, the race for the second place heats up
Final Standings

Swiss Subregional 2023-24

Swiss Subregional 2023-24 took place on December 9th at ETH, EPFL and USI. All three top positions within the top 3 were secured by students from ETH, with a total of six students from ETH achieving positions in the top 10. We have added it to Codeforces Gym for future training, more info can be found here.

Johannes maintaining “Balloon Distributor” and Bernhard managing 4 different contests
Konstantin blowing up balloons for “Guess Gauss”
Yuda and Mihnea trying to figure out how Ahmet mapped the seating plan
Balloon Squad continues their work
Bernhard checking if everything runs smoothly after answering every question with “Read the Statement”
Congratulations to Theodor, Paula and Michał for getting into Top 3

ICPC Challenge Championship 2023

In late August, the ICPC hosted its first ICPC Challenge Championship powered by Huawei. Qualification for this event was earned through good placement in ICPC challenges held on Codeforces. Two students from ETH were invited to participate in the championship. Bernhard qualified by achieving second prize in the contest “Topology-Aware VM Placement”. Konstantin received an invitation as a coach and received an award for Outstanding Mentorship for his guidance to the ETH teams in the ICPC world finals.

Bernhard and Konstantin with Huawei HR Manager

The championship, held at Huawei’s headquarters in Shenzhen, China, brought together 58 contestants from around the world. The challenge focused on “Buffer Sharing and Pre-allocation for Multi-tenant Databases”, with Bernhard ranking 24th. Aside from the competition, participants enjoyed various activities such as a tour of Huawei’s campus & factories, as well as a meeting with Huawei’s CEO and founder Ren Zhengfei. Minutes of the meeting can be found here.

For those interested in upcoming ICPC challenges, announcements and details are regularly posted on Codeforces. These challenges differ from traditional ICPC contests, emphasizing a single optimization problem and are open to participants with no age or university restrictions.

Further Information on the ICPC Challenge Championship can be found here.

ICPC World Finals Results & Swiss Subregional 2022-23

First things first, HUGE CONGRATULATIONS to the amazing team of Marcel Bezdrighin, Antti Röyskö and Yuhao Yao for achieving the 5th place at the ICPC World Finals Dhaka, winning a silver medal, and becoming ICPC Europe Champions! This is ETH’s first silver medal, and the best performance of any SWERC university in the history of the contest! There are some images in the end of this article.

On another note, the ICPC Swiss Subregional 2022-23 will happen on December 10th, 9:15! For more information, including signup, please go to https://vis.ethz.ch/en/events/457/.

Looking forward to seeing you there!

ICPC Swiss Subregional Contest 2021-2022 & World Finals Photos

The VIS ACM committee invites you to the ICPC Swiss Subregional Contest 2022 sponsored by Citadel | Citadel Securities on Saturday, November 27th at 9:15 to 16:30! Meeting point: HG G1.

ICPC is the world’s largest collegiate coding contest, and once again we are looking for talented programmers who are skilled enough to represent ETH! The first step is to participate at the Swiss Subregional, happening right here in Zurich.

Fortunately, the situation is looking better than last year and we’ll be able to hold the contest in real life! A valid COVID certificate and a mask worn at all times is mandatory.

The competition is individual (no teams) and held according to the usual ICPC format: 5 hours, 5 to 12 problems. There will be food served for lunch and after the contest. Here’s a rundown of the rules:

  • You will be able to choose between a variety of languages, including ICPC’s official languages: C, C++, and Java.
  • The contest will be held on ETH computers in a closed-book format; no online resources of any kind are allowed, and you are not allowed to use any code that you didn’t write during the contest.
  • Each solved problem gives exactly one point. There are no partial points and ties will be broken using a time-based penalty.
  • You will need a Codeforces account to participate. You should create this account in advance of the contest on https://codeforces.com

The contest is open to all ETH students. Among the best students satisfying the ICPC eligibility criteria [1], two teams of three students each will be selected to represent ETH at the regional contest of south-west Europe, SWERC [2].

This year’s contest is sponsored by Citadel | Citadel Securities!

Citadel is a global investment firm built around world-class talent, sound risk management, and innovative leading-edge technology. For thirty years, Citadel’s hedge funds have delivered meaningful and measurable results to top-tier investors around the world, including sovereign wealth funds, public institutions, corporate pensions, endowments and foundations.

Citadel Securities is a leading global market maker across a broad array of fixed income and equity securities. Our world-class capabilities position us to meet the liquidity demands of our diverse group of institutional clients in all market conditions. In partnering with us, our clients, including asset managers, banks, broker-dealers, hedge funds, government agencies and public pension programs are able to gain a powerful trading advantage and are better positioned to meet their investment goals.

Interested? Sign up now before November 26th at https://vis.ethz.ch/en/events/298!

If you have any questions regarding the contest, please do not hesitate to contact us at acm@vis.ethz.ch.

PS: Wondering how this looked like last year? Take a look at the photos below by our wonderful contestants from the last ICPC World Finals! 🙂

[1] https://icpc.global/regionals/rules

[2] http://swerc.eu/

SWERC 2020-21 Results

This weekend, six delegates of ETH competed in an online contest for the SWERC crown amongst 109 teams, and they scored the best result in over a decade!

  • Team lETHargy of Antti Röyskö, Marcel Bezdrighin and Yuhao Yao ranked second, just one problem behind first place!
  • Team promETHeus of Ari Jordan, Atli Fannar Franklìn and Long Truong ranked fifth, the best second-team performance in ETH history!

While qualification rules for ICPC 2021 have not yet been announced, it’s likely that team lETHargy will qualify. Congratulations!

You can find the full results here.