Google CodeJam

Because I enjoy programming, I decided to enter the Google CodeJam competition. It's a free challenge where you are asked a series of questions which can be solved by writing a small program. There is a qualification round, three at home rounds, a regional round, then a global round. To win, you have to make it to the global round. The overall winners get from $250-$10,000!

In the qualification round, you just had to get one question right to qualify. I was able to qualify with no problem. In fact, I got two questions correct! This weekend was the first round. To qualify for the second round, you have to come in the top 820. There are three first-rounds. They let you compete in two of them, in case you don't qualify in the first one. Each round had over 2,000 competitors.

I didn't qualify in my first try. I got one question right, but I didn't get this problem: Find (3 + √5)^n. This problem didn't seem to hard because you could probably just type it into a calculator to get the answer. When I got this problem wrong, I was pissed.

After reading an explanation of the correct answer after the competition was over, I didn't feel so bad. Apparently, linear algebra and knowledge of the Recurrence Relation is needed. Who knew?

On my second try to qualify I didn't get a single question right. My strategy, which apparently didn't work, was to only spend my time on the difficult question since it was worth the most points. Again, I didn't know the trick to get it right. I had fun in the competition, but I'm still very disappointed because I wanted to qualified.