After three years, La Salle Computer Society has brought back its intercollegiate programming competition “Clash of Brains.” The Clash of Brains is an event wherein students gather together to promote friendly competition and camaraderie along with honing their competitive programming skillset. The participants composed of students from De La Salle University (DLSU), Ateneo De Manila University (ADMU), University of the Philippines Diliman (UPD), and Mapua University. This year’s Clash of Brains was held last March 9, 2019.

Competition mechanics

Each participating university can only have a maximum of four teams, with each team having exactly three members and a coach. They were given a total of eight problems to solve in under four hours. As part of the competition rules, the only programming languages they can use are C, C++, Java, and Python.

The submission and scoring are patterned to the rules used in the International Collegiate Programming Contest. The teams will submit their solutions via PC^2, a software used to communicate with the contest judges. The judges will notify the team regarding their results through PC^2 as well. Aside from getting the correct solution, the time consumed is also recorded.

The teams were ranked based on the number of solutions accepted. If ever there are teams that have the same number of accepted solutions, they will be ranked based on the least time consumed for every solution. A tie-breaker question will be used if there are teams that have the same number of accepted solutions and least time consumed.

Event day and awarding

In the morning, the teams were given the chance to practice. They attempted to solve the practice problems while also finding strategies to be more efficient for the actual competition. After the practice round, they had a lunch break so they can interact with other teams.

As stated in the mechanics, they were given four hours to answer the given problems. All the teams were concentrating hard in order to solve the problems. In the end, the top three teams were named as follows:

Champion:
Qtpies - UPD
Members: Maded Batara III, Kirk Patrick Bamba, Mel Rogene Natividad Coach: Hykinel Bon Guarte

First Runner-Up:
KFC - ADMU
Members: Kyle Patrick Dular, Franz Louis Cesista, Gerard Francis Ortega Coach: Vernon Gutierrez

Second Runner-Up:
Panic - DLSU
Members: Jasper Pillejera, Jolene Valenzuela, Jade Yu Coach: Ryan Austin Fernandez

The champion, first runner-up, and second runner-up were given Php 3,000, Php 2,000, and Php 1,000 respectively. Congratulations to all the winners!