4 ms·
I am curious- what was the atmosphere at the finals like when you were a contestant? I remember when I first went in 2008, it felt like the superbowl for nerds
by sskates 14y ago
I am curious- what was the atmosphere at the finals like when you were a contestant?
I remember when I first went in 2008, it felt like the superbowl for nerds. Competitors would get up on stage and provide commentary while their swarms of virtual robots would duke it out on screen. There would be a bunch of oohs and aahs from the audience as each team of robots tried to gain the upper hand. The entire auditorium would erupt in cheers at the end of the match for the winner. I remember thinking Albert Ni was a coding god after seeing his team walk off stage as champions of the tournament.
- leelin 14y agoI believe 2004 was the turning point when the audience was very engaged -- that was the first year spectating was lots of fun, 34-101 was packed, cheering all around, etc. In 2001 and 2002, spectating was not fun at all, partly due to technical issues mid-contest. To make things more entertaining, Prof. Daniel Jackson asked Guy Steele to get up and talk about the new features in Java 1.4, and discuss when generics in java.util would be fully supported. Not joking....