Australia Blog
News and notes from Google Down Under
Aussie Aussie Aussie, Code Code Code
Friday, July 5, 2013
While many of us will be kicking back on the couch over the school holidays, a team of young Australians will be spending next week competing in the
IOI
, an international programming Olympiad, against high school students from over eighty countries. Over the course of two intense competition days, teams will attempt to solve six questions that would leave many seasoned programmers scratching their heads.
To give you a feel for how tough these questions are... try this one.
Imagine you are in a canoe and are travelling along an unfamiliar, foggy river covered in bridges. How could you write an artificial intelligence (AI) that can map out the bridges by sending the canoe on straight lines between points on opposite riverbanks and counting how many bridges it passes beneath?
Oh, and to score full marks for
this problem
, your AI must be flexible enough to map any conceivable set of bridges, strategic enough to make no more journeys than necessary, and fast enough to run on a typical laptop in under a second - even if there are hundreds of thousands of bridges.
For high school students that are interested in developing their problem solving skills, you can try out problems of all difficulties at the Australian team’s
training site
. As the first stage of the 2014 IOI, Maths and computing teachers can also sign up their class to compete in the
Australian Informatics Olympiad
- which will be held in schools on Thursday 5 September 2013.
The
IOI
will be held at the University of Queensland from 6-13 July 2013. You can follow the Australian team on
their blog
.
Posted by Christopher Chen, Google Software Engineer and two-time IOI gold medallist
Labels
20%
3D
AdSense
AdWords
AdWords Express
Agencies
agencies adwords TV
Analytics
android
announcements
antarctica
App Marketplace
apps
art
Australia
Australian IT
big data
Big Query
blogging
blogs
books
broadband
business
calendar
campaign management
careers
CeBIT
chrome
Chromebox
cloud computing
competition
computer science
conversion tracking
creativity
currents
cyber safety
cycling
dashboard
Developer Day
developers
digital advertising
digital economy
Display
display ads
Doodles
drive
ebooks
education
Election
energy
enhanced campaigns
Enterprise
entrepreneurship
environment
Equatorgate
Fairfax
film
filtering
G'day Google
Getting Aussie Business Online
Gmail
gone google
gonegoogle
google
Google App Engine
Google Apps
Google Apps for Business
Google Apps for Education
Google Art Project
Google Australia
Google Chrome
Google Code
Google docs
Google Drive
Google Earth
google maps
Google Places
google play
Google Search
Google Serve
Google Sites
Google Talk
Google Trends
Google+
Googlers and culture
government
green
Guest blogger
guest speakers
Hangouts
HR
iGoogle
information
innovation
internet
internet industry
IT
Julia Gillard
language
life
local
maps
measurement
media industry
mobile
Moderator
movies
music
navigation
NBN
netball
new features
news
NGEN
non-profit
online advertising
online safety
open government
open source
Partnerships
picasa
play
Policy
politics
prime minister
privacy
prizes
PSI
publishers
puppies
real estate
Reception
recruitment
removals
rentals
reporting
research
Running
scholarships
schools
science
search
search ads
Security
shopping
sitelinks
sketchup
small business
smartphones
SMB
street view
student programs
students
Stupid Google employee tricks
Summer of Code
Support
survey
sydney
symphony
tablet
technology
Themes
tips
training
transit
translate
transparency
transport
Universities
vault
voicesearch
Wave
women
workplace culture
YouTube
YouTube Live
zeitgeiest
Archive
2019
Dec
Nov
Oct
Sep
Aug
Jul
Jun
May
Apr
Mar
Feb
Jan
2018
Dec
Nov
Oct
Sep
Aug
Jul
Jun
May
Apr
Mar
Feb
Jan
2017
Dec
Nov
Oct
Sep
Aug
Jul
Jun
May
Apr
Mar
Feb
Jan
2016
Dec
Nov
Oct
Sep
Aug
Jul
Jun
May
Apr
Mar
Feb
Jan
2015
Dec
Nov
Oct
Sep
Aug
Jul
Jun
May
Apr
Mar
Feb
2014
Dec
Nov
Oct
Sep
Aug
Jul
Jun
May
Apr
Mar
Feb
Jan
2013
Dec
Nov
Oct
Sep
Aug
Jul
Jun
May
Apr
Mar
Feb
Jan
2012
Dec
Nov
Oct
Sep
Aug
Jul
Jun
May
Apr
Mar
Feb
Jan
2011
Dec
Nov
Oct
Sep
Aug
Jul
Jun
May
Apr
Mar
Feb
Jan
2010
Dec
Nov
Oct
Sep
Aug
Jul
Jun
May
Apr
Mar
Feb
Jan
2009
Dec
Nov
Oct
Sep
Aug
Jul
Jun
May
Apr
Mar
Feb
Jan
2008
Dec
Nov
Oct
Sep
Aug
Jul
Jun
May
Apr
Mar
Feb
Jan
2007
Dec
Nov
Oct
Sep
Aug
Jul
Jun
May
Feed
Follow @googledownunder
Give us feedback in our
Product Forums
.