Some Photos along the Western Road at Night

The following are just a few photographs taken on a recent trip to Cork. The first photo below is taken from the main gate into University College Cork, looking out of the gate towards the T-Junction that lies directly outside it.

The next photograph is of some apartments that are lit-up with some nice reflections to be seen on the water, they are located on the Western Road, 5 minutes of less from the city centre.

The final two photographs are of the River Lee Hotel, that was built about five years ago, once again this is situated on the Western Road about 3/4 minutes from the main gate of UCC.

The Quad & Honan Plaza UCC at Night

After the RGU School of Computing team arrived in Cork for the IrlCPC Programming Competition, we set off on a short tour around the campus. It was roughly between 22:00 and 22:30, so the Quad and Honan Plaza were lit up.

The first photo above is of the archway leading to the Quad, legend has it that as a student if you walk across the crest you will fail your exams.

The East Wing of the Quad

The North Wing of the Quad

The West Wing of the Quad

The North Wing of the Quad, looking straight along the North/South path of the Quad. Once again another certain way to fail your exams is to walk across the Quad.

Panoramic Image of the Quad at Night

A section of the UCC Library, known as the Fish Tank, due to the students studying behind the large panels of glass that look out on to the Quad. It was interesting to see that quite a few students were hard at work studying even thought it was around 22:30 on a Friday evening.

The Honan Plaza, with the Student Centre on the Left and the Honan Chapel directly ahead

The Honan Plaza and Chapel

IrlCPC Programming Competition – Video of Presentations & Prize Giving

My previous post gave an outline of the RGU Computing Team’s journey and experience at the IrlCPC Programming Competition held in Cork, Ireland on Saturday 24th March 2012. Once the competition had concluded at about 17:30 and following on from some group photographs everybody made their way to one of the lecture rooms for a series of presentations and the awarding of prizes. The video below includes some words from the chair of the UCC ACM Student Chapter, a presentation from one of the sponsors (Big Fish Games) and a short talk from another software development company that have offices in Cork.

Following on from about 15 minutes or so of presentations, the winning teams from the competition were revealed and prizes awarded, the video below is of this half of the closing ceremony.

IrlCPC Programming Competition, UCC, Saturday 24th March 2012

On Friday 23rd March myself and three of our Computer Science Undergrads set off on a visit to Cork, Ireland to take part in the IrlCPC Programming Competition. The competition, now in its third year was hosted by the UCC ACM Student Chapter at the Department of Computer Science, Western Gateway Building, University College Cork. In total about 30 teams took part across two categories Undergrad & Staff/Postgrad.

We began by meeting up at Aberdeen Airport around 11:30 on the Friday morning to catch the 13:00hrs flight to Dublin, touching down around 14:30. From there we got the 747 bus into the city centre arriving at the central bus station just after 15:40. After grabbing a takeaway sandwich or two we boarded the 16:00 bus to Cork. The 260km or so journey took about 4.5 hours, thereby arriving in Cork around 20:30. We took a short stroll from the bus station at Parnell Place down Patrick Street (the main street), along Grand Parade, and out the Western Road to just before the main gates of the University, arriving at our B&B around 21:00. After dropping off our bags we then went on a short night-time walk down to see the Western Gateway Building, and then on towards the heart of the campus to see the Quad with its night-time lighting, Honan Plaza, the Honan Chapel & the Student Centre as well as the O’Reilly Building and the Library. It was interesting to see that the library was quite busy (specifically the area known as the “Fish Tank”) with people even thought it was around 22:30 on a Friday evening.

The competition day itself began with registration at 10:00, followed by a practice session about an hour later, then it was time for a spot of lunch before the competition itself commenced at 13:30. The competition featured eight questions to be completed in a four-hour period. The teams had to work on the problems without the aid of their coaches, therefore the coaches had four hours with which to catch up on the essentials like email, take some photos around the building & tweet about how things were going. Around three hours into the competition I heard that the RGU team had just taken the lead, so I was able to get a photograph of the leaderboard (which can be seen below). The competition concluded around 17:30, and all the participants made their way outside for a group photograph, after which we all headed back inside to one of the lecture theatres for some short talks and the handing out of the prizes. The award ceremony drew to a close around 18:30 & everybody parted ways, with many of the teams heading directly back to places such as Limerick & Dublin.

The night was still young however, so after grabbing a bite to eat & heading back to our B&B we went out to meet up with about 30 or so of the other competitors at one of the local bars often frequented by those at the University – the Mardyke. Unlike most bars, the Mardyke has quite a selection of various games dotted about, including chess, checkers, pool, table tennis & a number of others. All in all everybody had a great time and everybody made the most of what turned out to be a very long day of programming and partying. Competitions like this are a great way to exercise ones programming skills & I am sure that we all look forward to seeing more opportunities like this to take part in.

I should also say that RGU School of Computing team were very happy with achieving second place in the competition. The winning team of the undergrad category “DIT Champions” had also won the competition the year before & had been in training for quite some time before the event. Further details of the scores should become available in the coming days. Most of the photographs below were taken by myself on the day, but a few of them were taken by the events photographer Helmut Simonis who posted the photographs he took of the competition on the following site.

The Main Entrance / Main Gate to UCC

Making our way along the Western Road out towards the Western Gateway Building housing the Department of Computer Science and a number of other departments

Enterance to the Western Gateway Building

Entering the Western Gateway Building, the building is about 60 meters wide 100 meters long covering five floors

Chatting with Dr. Sabin Tabirca

The Morning Practice Session

The RGU Team hard at work solving the problem sets

The Leaderboard at about the three hour mark, RGU has just overtaken the DIT team

Second Place – Postgraduate Category

First Place – Postgraduate Category

Third Place – Undergrad Category

Second Place – Undergrad Category (RGU School of Computing Team)

Second Place – Undergrad Category (RGU School of Computing Team)

First Place – Undergrad Category

Munster Programming Training Participants Award

Group Photograph

IrlCPC Programming Competition

Yesterday the Schools undergrad team for the IrlCPC Programming Competition and myself went to visit our sponsors Codfiy Ltd. They are located just minutes from the School of Computing. The company was founded by some former graduates & will be celebrating their 12th birthday in just a few weeks. We spent about an hour chatting to them & having some fun playing with their MS Surface, we also took some time out to get some photographs. The competition will take place in a few weeks at the Department of Computer Science, University College Cork and is being organised by the ACM student chapter. At present there are 25 teams fully registered and another half a dozen still waiting to fully complete the registration process. This is the third year of the competition running and for the first time there are two categories – undergrads & staff / postgrads. Last year 16 teams took part, so the level of interest in partaking is clearly going from strength to strength. Our team is represented by three Computer Science undergrads – one in his final year and two in their penultimate year. So here’s wishing our team the very best of luck in the forthcoming competition.