Notre Dame Computer Club

Fall 2008 Programming Contest Results

We held our biannual ND Fall Programming Contest this afternoon, Sunday, September 21, in the Fitz Linux cluster. Six teams competed, working with a set of six problems over a three-hour span. Results are here, and more information can be found here. We have determined the team members that will travel to Michigan in November for the Regional Programming Contest: Chris Fallin, Joey Schmitt, Matt Prelee, Sam Banina, Tommy Walton and Patrick Braga-Henebry. Congratulations to all who participated for an excellent showing!

Fall Meeting and Programming Contest

At our general meeting on Tues, Sept 16, 2008, we heard from Dr. Sepeta, our advisor, on functional programming, with specific examples in Scheme. This was an enlightening and interesting foray into a field not often explored by undergrads. Following that, we announced our upcoming programming contest. We are holding the ND Fall Programming Contest 2008 on Sunday, Sept 21, 2008, at 1pm, in 177 Fitzpatrick. There will be six questions to be solved in three hours, using the usual PC^2 contest software that allows for solutions in C, C++ or Java. We encourage any and all interested parties to come! The performances at this contest will determine our team to go to regionals at Michigan in November.

Officer Elections

Our annual officer elections occured immediately before Saturday's programming contest. We are pleased to announce the new officers: Chris Fallin, president; Patrick Braga-Henebry, vice-president; and Matt Prelee, secretary. Our treasurer will be appointed in the coming days. We look forward to serving ACM in the 2008-2009 academic year and continuing to offer relevant and interesting events.

Spring 2008 Programming Contest Results

Our biannual Programming Contest was held on Saturday, April 5, 2008 in the Fitzpatrick Hall Linux Cluster (room 170). The contest was run in a PC² environment using Knoppix LiveCDs on Hewlett-Packard xw4100 Workstations. Teams were afforded three hours to answer as many of the six contest questions as possible. Rankings were determined based on the number of problems solved and the total cumulative time consumed in solving problems.

The final standings can be viewed here. The contest problem set is available on the programming contests section of this site.

The contest questions were written by Chris Fallin. Nick Schott organized the logistics of the event. Chris set up the contest environment, with some assistance from Dan Dugovic.

Spring Programming Contest, Officer Elections

The spring ACM programming contest will be in Fitz room 170 (Linux cluster) tomorrow, Saturday, April 5 from 1:00 PM - 4:00 PM! Programming can be done in C or C++. The contest takes place in a friendly, fairly relaxed environment. Students with any programming experience at all are always welcome and encouraged to participate.

We will have pizza and pop at the end of the contest for all participants! Also, Best Buy gift cards will be awarded to the top three teams! Teams can consist of one or two people; feel free to sign up with a friend or code alone.

Teams are encouraged to register beforehand. To register, please email cseclub [at] nd [dot] edu with the names of your team members and a team name. A $5 fee per team will be collected at the contest that overs pizza and prizes; if you have paid dues this year or did last semester's contest, you are exempt from the $5 fee.

ACM officer elections will be held after the contest! If you are interested in running for an office for next year, just show up. If you cannot be present, please email cseclub [at] nd [dot] edu with your name and the office (pres, vice pres, treasurer, secretary) you are interested in running for.

Special Guest Speaker - Software Engineering

A visiting guest speaker on software engineering is coming to Notre Dame on the first Monday back from spring break!

• Monday, March 10, 2008
• 3:00 PM
• Debartolo 126
• Dr. Andrian Marcus, Wayne State University,
  speaking about software engineering
• Refreshments will be served!

Dr. Marcus will present an overview of the software development and evolution process, as well as go into some detail regarding his research. This would potentially be very relevant for many of you if you are going to do anything with software in industry or academia, or are just interested in learning more about the software development process.

AFTER the talk (around 4:30 or 4:45), ACM members (that's you) are invited adjourn to a special session in the engineering student lounge (217 Cushing) for a smaller, less formal, more technical Q & A with Dr. Marcus. Free dinner will be served at this portion.

Feel free to come to one of both of these events whenever you're free!

Dr. Marcus's research interests include:

• Software Development and Evolution
• Program Understanding and Software Visualization
• Software Analysis and Metrics
• Cognitive Models of Software Development Processes

This event is jointly sponsored by the ND student chapters of ACM (Computer Club) and the Upsilon Pi Epsilon honor society.

Upcoming Speaker - Distributed Computing and Biology

The ACM Computer Club and Biology Club are jointly sponsoring a talk on "Biology on a Worldwide Distributed Supercomputer" by Dr. Jesus Izaguirre on Monday, 2/18, at 6:00 PM in Debartolo 136. Food and drink will be served, so you can get a free dinner while you listen to the talk.

Dr. Izaguirre is involved with a number of projects dealing with the study of biocomplexity:

• folding@Home, a distributed computing project in which people from around the world download and run software to band together to make one of the largest supercomputers in the world to study protein folding
• ProtoMol, a software framework for computing multiscale molecular dynamics of biomolecules
• CompuCell3D, a software framework for multimodel simulations of biocomplexity

This promises to be a very interesting talk on current, relevant topics in computing and biology.

Speaker on Data Mining

Dave Cieslak, a computer science Ph.D. student at Notre Dame, gave an interesting talk on data mining and its applicaitons to the ND ACM chapter on Wednesday, January 23, 2008 at 6:00 PM.

"Detecting Fractures in Classifier Performance," a paper by Dave and Dr. Nitesh Chawla, was recently selected as the Best of the IEEE International Conference on Data Mining.

2007 ACM East Central Regional Contest

ND ACM sponsored two teams to represent Notre Dame at the ACM East Regional Programming Contest in Ann Arbor, Michigan on November 10, 2007. Both Notre Dame teams provided an impressive showing, with Irish Blue placing 11th and Irish Gold placing 26th overall among 91 university teams in the region.

Irish Blue consisted of Dan Dugovic, Chris Fallin, and Joey Schmitt. Irish Gold consisted of Pavan Sadarangani, Sam Banini, and Raymond Le Grand.

The final standings for the entire region can be viewed here. The details of the contest are available here.

Fall 2007 Programming Contest Results, Photos

Our biannual Programming Contest was held on Sunday, October 7, 2007 in the Fitzpatrick Hall Linux Cluster (room 148). The contest was run in a PC² environment using Knoppix LiveCDs on Hewlett-Packard xw4100 Workstations. Teams werre afforded two hours to answer as many of the seven contest questions as possible. Rankings were determined based on the number of problems solved and the total cumulative time consumed in solving problems.

The final standings can be viewed here. Also, check out the photo gallery for the contest. The contest problem set is available on the programming contests section of this site.

The contest questions were written by Chris Fallin. Nick Schott organized the logistics of the event. Chris set up the contest environment, with some assistance from Dan Dugovic.

Fall Programming Contest Details

This coming Sunday, October 7, the ND ACM Computer Club will host its annual Fall Programming Contest! It will start at 1:00 PM in the Fitz Linux cluster (room 148) and include pizza and pop for all participants. Best Buy gift cards will be awarded to the top programmers! Programming will be done in C, C++, or Java (you choose); feel free to sign up with a partner or code alone.

Before you say to yourself, I don't know how to program, that's for all those CSE majors (or, I am a CSE major, I get enough programming homework), consider just how fun this event will be:

• The contest environment is relaxed, and the problems are NOT your typical factor-some-equation-in-MATLAB homework problems.
• The problems are not designed to be hard, and if you understand a for-loop, you can have some fun with this event.
• You don't even have to know how to do input/output; we provide a cheat sheet!
• Even if you don't program at all, feel free to sign up; we've had non-programmers work with programmers in the past and do quite well, so if you like to solve some fun problems in a low-stress environment, this is for you.

If you're interested, email cseclub [at] nd [dot] edu with your team members (code alone or with a partner) and team name (be creative) by 10/6/07. We will collect $5 from each programmer the day of the contest to over pizza and pop (this counts as paying Computer Club dues, so if you paid dues this year, you don't need to pay again).

This contest also serves as a qualifier for the ACM Regional Programming Contest in Ann Arbor on 11/10/07.

Past contest problems and rankings are available by clicking the "Programming Contests" link at the top of this page.

Barbeque and Game Watch This Saturday!

We are hosting a club barbeque on Saturday, October 6, 2007, the day of the UCLA away game. It will be held in front of (to the north of) Cushing Hall, starting at 5:30 PM with food served around 6:00 PM. A cornhole game will be set up for our enjoyment. Hamburgers, hotdogs, chips, and typical picnic food will be served. We have the Engineering Student Lounge in 217 Cushing reserved following the barbeque to watch the Irish bring home a much-needed victory against UCLA.

This event is free of charge to Computer Club members (who have paid $5 dues; you can bring it Saturday) and computer science and engineering students and faculty. Club members and CSE personnel may feel free to bring a guest free of charge.

Upcoming Barbeque and Fall Programming Contest

The ND ACM Computer Club kicked off its 2007-2008 year with its first meeting tonight, Thursday, September 20, and several worthwhile events are in store for club members and friends!

We're starting the season with a club barbeque on Saturday, October 6, 2007, the day of the UCLA away game. Location is TBD, pending grill availability. We'll likely head to the Engineering Student Lounge in 217 Cushing following the barbeque to watch the football game.

The Club will host its annual programming contest the next day, Sunday, October 7, 2007, in Fitzpatrick 148. We will begin at 1:00 PM with a short practice contest and then launch into the three-hour programming contest itself, ending with free pizza and pop and a presentation of Best Buy gift cards at approximately 5 PM.

Participants may work with C, C++ or Java; the environment will be very similar to past years. No extensive programming experience is required: the contest is fairly relaxed and focuses more on technique and problem solving than on detailed knowledge. Coders may work in teams of two or by themselves.

All are welcome to join us! We request that all teams or individuals interested in participating pre-register by email to cseclub [at] nd [dot] edu with a team name and participants' names.

Finally, we plan to expand our social calendar with several events this semester. A video game night later in the semester is in the works; last semester's video game night, featuring DDR, Halo, Guitar Hero and Super Smash Brothers, was a great success with truly outstanding attendance. More details to come on this and other event possibilities.

First Meeting of the Year

Welcome back, ND ACM Computer Club! We will be having our first meeting of the year this Thursday (9/20/07) at 8:30 PM in Fitzpatrick Hall room 356A.

Of course, we will serve the ever-popular pizza which is a staple of our meetings. In addition, Dr. Greg Madey will give a presentation about his fascinating work with bioinformatics, including opportunities for interested students to get involved with cutting-edge research. We will also announce our upcoming programming contest as well as discuss events for the year, including a club barbecue, video game night, bowling, and potential guest speakers. We will be collecting $5 in dues at this meeting, which will cover all the pizza you could possibly want this year as well as a slew of other benefits.

Video Game Night a Smashing Success!

Our first ever Video Game Night was ineffably amazing. Over thirty students attended the event, which was held in the Engineering Student Lounge. We had several Xbox 360, Wii, PlayStation 2, and GameCube systems setup on three TVs and two 6' X 6' projector screens. DDR was played using arcade-quality pads. Those in attendance enjoyed free pizza, pop, and chips, and played games for prizes as well as just for fun.

The winners of the tournaments were:

• Super Smash Brothers - John Meehan
• Guitar Hero II - Joey Schmitt
• DDR Max - Dan Dugovic
• Halo - Dan Myers

Each of these winners received a Best Buy gift card, as well as bragging rights and gamer glory.

See you at the second annual Video Game Night next year!

CRC Responees to ND ACM Computer Club Questions

In March, Dr. Ed Bensman and the ND Center for Research Computing hosted our club for a presentation and question and answer session. (See details on the event below on this page.) Dr. Bensman has provided detailed follow-up responses to questions raised at the presentation. Here are the questions and responses:

1. ND ACM Question: Is there a way to run resource-intensive, interactive applications remotely with X term that provides for increased responsiveness?
   
   CRC response: Your best bet here continues to be the cluster machines in Fitzpatrick Hall. We have previously investigated the use of applications servers for such tasks, but there are systematic issues with satisfying a varied customer base with differing needs. CRC will make note of this and may incorporate a possible solution into future acquisitions.
   


2. ND ACM Question: Is there a way to see what users/how many users are utilizing a remote machine before starting an ssh session? Also, is there a way to see a list of workstations available for an ssh session and how many users are signed onto each workstation?
   
   CRC Response: attached [click here] is a file listing all clustered servers throughout the campus. Also, here is a tool to monitor the status of the Condor pool, which contains most (if not all), of the servers in the Fitz clusters: link
   


3. ND ACM Question: Is it possible to view/obtain a map of the locations of all hidden cellular access points on campus?
   
   CRC Response: at this time neither CRC nor OIT have such a map.
   


4. ND ACM Question: Is it possible to obtain more licenses for MATLAB to accommodate more users at peak usage times?
   
   CRC Response: as was addressed at the talk, we recently purchased over 100 additional MATLAB licenses for the campus. These licenses tend to get maximized when class projects are due or toward the end of the semester. In purchasing licenses we have to strike a balance between the need during peaks and during break periods. To ensure availability of licenses, students are encouraged not to wait to begin working on projects that involve the use of MATLAB.
   


5. ND ACM Question: The possibility of obtaining CRC user accounts for interested Computer Club members was also discussed. I understand that this would allow those interested to submit batch jobs to the CRC's powerful machines for processing, as well as provide for remote storage and other features.
   
   CRC Response: to obtain an account with the CRC, send an email to CRCsupport@nd.edu along with your name, your netID, your sponsor and his/her netID. State the purpose for which you wish to have an account and the duration (for the semester, until graduation, etc.)
   


6. ND ACM Question: At the meeting, it was also mentioned that the presentation slides may be made available for online access and archiving purposes. I'd be glad to post such materials on the Computer Club website if you like.
   
   CRC Response: slides are attached to this email. Feel free to post them. [link to slides]

Club/Chapter Officers Elected for 2007-2008

The Computer Club/ND ACM Chapter officers for the 2007-2008 academic year were elected at our final meeting of the year, held on April 27, 2007. The newly elected officers are:

• President - Nick Schott
• Vice President - Dan Dugovic
• Treasurer - Jared Bulosan
• Secretary - Chris Fallin

I (Nick) would personally like to thank everyone involved with the Computer Club for an awesome year. I'm really looking forward to having a spectacular time with you all again this coming year.

Video Game Night, Officer Elections

On Friday, April 27th, we will hold our final (brief) meeting with officer elections, a Computer Club banquet (pizza), and Video Game Night all in one sitting. The meeting will start at 6:00 PM in the Engineering Student Lounge (Cushing 217); pizza and pop will be served at this time. Officer elections will be held shortly thereafter. If you are interested in running for an officer position for next year, email cseclub [at] nd [dot] edu before April 27. The names of the current officers can be viewed here.

Once this is done, Video Game Night will start! We will have the big screen TV in there as well as two projectors set up with Guitar Hero, DDR, Halo, and Super Smash Brothers Melee, among other games! There will be a single-elimination tournament for the four games just listed explicitly, with prizes (Best Buy gift cards) awarded to the best gamers! After the tournament we will just play games for fun. If you plan on attending, please email cseclub [at] nd [dot] edu so an accurate count for pizza can be obtained. If you forget to respond, come anyway! We will play video games Until about 9:00 PM. See you on the 27th! Make sure you bring your game.

ND Center for Research Computing Presentation Was Fascinating and Impressive

The presentation by the ND Center for Research Computing (CRC) for the ND ACM Computer Club was held on Friday, March 23, 2007 at 4:00 PM at the ND Information Technology Center. A good deal of unique work goes on at the CRC; it was a fascinating, impressive, and worthwhile presentation.

The presentation involved Dr. Edward Bensman, High Performance Computing Engineer, and other CRC staff members providing an overview of the CRC's main functionality and facilities. Dr. Bensman and his colleagues also answered a number of CRC- and OIT-related questions raised by the students in attendance.

The event was held in the access facility for the CRC's Video Access Grid, which has state-of-the-art videoconferencing equipment. Those in attendance were able to see a demo of this equipment at work, which was quite an impressive display.

The CRC's resources also include an internationally ranked supercomputing cluster, located off campus. The presentation included viewing realtime images of these facilities via remote webcams. These resources are part of the Northwest Indiana Computational Grid, which is in turn part of the international Open Science Grid Consortium.

The ND ACM Computer Club would like to thank Dr. Dewitt Latimer, Chief Technology Officer and Deputy CIO, Office of Information Technologies and Interim Director of the CRC; Dr. Edward Bensman, High Performance Computing Engineer, Office of Chief Technology Officer; Jeff Miller, Manager of Academic Media Resources, Educational Technologies; and In-Saeng Suh, High Performance Computing Engineer, Operations and Engineering, who welcomed us into their facility, demonstrated and described the CRC's functionality, and answered our technical questions.

2007 Spring Programming Contest Results, Photos

Our annual spring Programming Contest was held on Sunday, February 25, 2007 in the Fitzpatrick Hall Linux Cluster (room 148). The contest was run in a PC² environment using Knoppix LiveCDs on Hewlett-Packard xw4100 Workstations. Teams werre afforded two hours to answer as many of the seven contest questions as possible. Rankings were determined based on the number of problems solved and the total cumulative time consumed in solving problems.

The final standings can be viewed here. Also, check out the photo gallery for the contest. The contest problem set is available on the programming contests section of this site.

The Contest questions were written by Jeff Smith and Dan Dugovic. Nick Schott organized the event and handled logistics. Jeff was responsible for setting up the contest environment.

Upcoming ND Spring Programming Contest

Our annual Spring Programming Contest will be held on Sunday, February 25, 2007 in Fitzpatrick Hall room 148! The contest will start at 1:00 PM in the Fitz Linux cluster and last until about 4:00 PM. Programming can be done in C, C++, or Java. The contest takes place in a friendly, fairly relaxed environment. Students with any programming experience at all are always welcome and encouraged to participate.

We will have free pizza and pop at the end of the contest! Also, Best Buy gift cards will be awarded to the top three teams! Teams can consist of one or two people; feel free to sign up with a friend or code alone.

Teams are encouraged to register beforehand. To register, please email cseclub [at] nd [dot] edu with the names of your team members and a team name.

During the contest, team members may reference any printed or written material (such as textbooks, notes, example programs) that they bring to the contest. The contest will be run in a PC² environment using Knoppix boot disks on HP machines. The contest will last about three hours. Points will be awarded based on the number of questions solved, and more points will be awarded for solving a problem in a shorter amount of time.

Feel free to email us at cseclub [at] nd [dot] edu if you have any questions. See you Sunday!

First Meeting of the Spring Semester

The ND ACM Computer Club will hold its first meeting of the semester on Monday, February 12, 2007 at 6:30 PM in Fitzpatrick Hall room 356A. We will be having free pizza, chips, and pop for all who attend!

Topics of discussion for this meeting include:

• a field trip to the facility of the ND Center for Research Computing in South Bend, which serves as the primary interface to the Northwest Indiana Computational Grid. We will try to decide on a date and time that works for interested students to attend.
• our upcoming spring programming contest
• the possibility of having an additional, AI-centered programming contest
• a convenient time and place to hold a purely social event such as a barbecue
• the possibility of a brief trip to Cleveland, Ohio for interested students to attend the Notacon technology conference in April

Also, Dr. Douglas Thain, Notre Dame Department of Computer Science and Engineering, will give a presentation on grid computing and distributed computing.

ACM Regional Programming Contest Results

The Club organized and sponsored two teams to represent Notre Dame at the ACM Regional Programming Contest. The two teams were registered as Irish Gold and Irish Blue and each consisted of three team members. Prior to the contest, each team held several team practice sessions and researched common programming problem solution algorithms in preparation for the contest.

The ACM Programming Contest was held on November 10-11, 2006, in Ashland, Ohio. Two teams of three, consisting of veteran ACM Contest participants, participants in the ND Fall Programming Contest, and other active Club members represented the University in this international contest. The East Regional portion of the contest, consisting of the Ashland site plus three other satellite locations, involved 116 teams from 64 colleges and universities in Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan, eastern Ontario, and Indiana.

Both Notre Dame teams provided a strong showing, with Irish Blue placing 9th and Irish Gold placing 36th overall among 116 teams in the region. Impressively, the Irish Blue team finished 1st among at the 45 teams at the Ashland contest location.

The Irish Blue team consisted of Jeff Smith, Dan Dugovic, and Chris Fallin. The Irish Gold team consisted of Eric Riedl, Joey Schmitt, and Nick Schott. A report on the Notre Dame teams' performance at the ACM Regional Programming Contest can be found here on the ND Computer Science and Engineering Department website.

ND Fall Programming Contest Results

Our annual fall Programming Contest was held on Sunday, October 8, 2006 in the Fitzpatrick Hall Linux Cluster. The contest was run in a PC² environment using Knoppix boot disks on HP machines. The contest lasted three hours, and participants were limited to completing problems in this time frame. Points were awarded for the number of questions solved, and more points were awarded for solving a problem in a shorter amount of time.

The final standings can be viewed here. The contest instructions and problem set are available on the programming contests section of this site. Based on the contest results, past experience, and programmer availability, Jeff Smith, Dan Dugovic, Chris Fallin, Eric Riedl, Joey Schmitt, and Nick Schott will represent Notre Dame in the ACM (Association for Computing Machinery) Regional Programming Contest on November 11, 2006 in Ashland, Ohio.

The ND Fall Programming Contest was set up and administered by Jeff Smith, Computer Club Secretary Emeritus, and Dan Dugovic, Computer Club Vice President.

ND Fall Programming Contest Coming Up

The Notre Dame Computer Club will hold its annual Fall Programming Contest on this Sunday, October 8, 2006 in the Fitzpatrick Hall Linux cluster. The contest will start at 1:00 PM and last until about 5:00 PM. The programming languages used will be C and C++, and we will go over some basic I/O functions as a refresher before the contest starts. Students with any programming experience are welcome and encouraged to participate.

We will have pizza and pop at the and of the contest. The entry fee for the contest is $5 per person. For participants who have already paid Computer Club dues this year, this fee is waived.

Teams can consist of one or two people; feel free to sign up with a friend or code alone. Best Buy gift cards will be awarded to the top three teams. This contest will also determine four individuals who will be invited to join existing team members in representing Notre Dame at the ACM (Association for Computing Machinery) Regional Programming Contest in Ashland, Ohio on November 11. (If you know you can't go to this, that's fine, feel free to participate in the ND Contest on Sunday anyway.)

Please register for Sunday's contest beforehand by emailing cseclub [at] nd [dot] edu with the name(s) of your team member(s).

Officers Elected

Computer Club Officers for the 2005-2006 school year were elected at the October 2, 2006 club meeting. They are:

• President: Nick Schott
• Vice President: Dan Dugovic
• Secretary: Patrick Braga-Henebry
• Treasurer: Jared Bulosan

The faculty advisor for the Computer Club is Dr. Raymond Sepeta.

First Meeting Coming Up...Free Pizza!

Our first meeting for this year will be held on Monday, October 2, 2006, at 7:30 PM in Fitzpatrick Hall room 356A. There will be free pizza, chips, and drinks for all who attend!

We will have a guest speaker, Dr. Kevin Bowyer, the Chair of the Department of Computer Science. He will give a presentation of his fascinating work involving biometrics.

At this meeting we will also announce our upcoming programming contest.

Come hear Dr. Bowyer's interesting talk, enjoy pizza, learn about our programming contests, and meet new people! We will also collect $5 in dues for the year, which covers pizza at our events and helps fund the programming contests we sponsor.

Welcome!

Welcome to the new website for the University of Notre Dame Computer Club! Check back for updates soon!