The emotion behind “All tests passed! You rock”.
“Make it work, make it right, make it fast.”
The prestigious and ultra-fine “Pointer Camp” organized by KITE really teased my brain and triggered me to compete with my peers. The master of this series was respected Dr.Ashok Bakthavathsalam. Literally, he was the one who inculcated competitiveness, diligence and applied a strong coat of motivation in me. I am really grateful to him for the wonderful deeds he has done to us by spending time on building our skills.
CLOUDCODER
The event commenced with a three days introductory session in which they solved some important and interesting problems which would lend us a hand in solving other complex ones. In these three days, we were taken into competitive programming-like platform named “CloudCoder”. With a puzzling heart and mind, we were introduced to solve real-world puzzles.
My Progress Summary
*POINTERS* — TRAILER & MAIN PICTURE!
The first day went well since the challenge problem was quite easy. The actual main picture started when it was day three! Pathetically, I was not able to pass the test cases. The event also constituted a review meeting. I went into the meeting and learned the solution which was taught. Seeing my peers (competitors) completed the day three challenge was a disappointment from my side. I motivated and suppressed my grief by myself.
The very next day which was the fourth day of the challenge changed into a day of enthusiasm. With encouragement, a competitive spirit, and a single-focused heart and mind I was able to complete the challenge before everyone could. Wow!, I explained my code to the teachers and my peers. Even others came up with a good solution. I received appreciation from Dr.Ashok Bakthavathsalam and it was a feel-good one.
Eventually, on the fifth day an unexpected and incredible thing happened to me. I was carried away along the stream of gladness with the announcement, “Aarthy wins a KGiSL Best Achiever Badge”. It was really blissful when I heard this. I wondered that how could situations change around with optimism, that too in a single day.
On day 11, we were learning the simplest solution for subsequence problem. We were given the challenge to solve a tdd4 test case so that we could pass all the test cases. I was able to analyze the test case and I proposed the solution to it. As expected, it worked, and for the same, I was rewarded with the prestigious “KGiSL Best Achiever Badge” for the second time!
I take pride with these posters of fame and happy my peers got the badge too!
Winning the first badge
Winning the second badge
strrev
String reversal- I hope this will be a piece of cake for many programmers. Even there are easiest solutions to solve it without using built-in functions.
But this challenge was really a different and wicked one, honestly! It took me almost 10 full days to arrive at the solution. I was forced to learn from stack overflow, stack exchange, and Wikipedia in order to complete that one mysterious UTF-8 test case.
With constant willingness to complete the challenge and to see the message “All tests passed! You rock”, I was able to defeat the test case by passing it! I found that problem so insightful. I was given an opportunity to explain my code. My code was visualized in a tool named “Python Tutor”, (click here). I hope my peers understood all the lines of the code.
my_strrev
For the third time, I was presented with the “KGiSL Best Achiever Badge” for solving this problem. A wonderful poster was done exclusively for me portraying this!
Thank you KITE
On day 13
KNOWLEDGE OF POINTERS IN C ∝ SELF LEARNING
“A teacher is one who makes himself progressively unnecessary.”
— Thomas Carruthers
Likewise, I entered myself into the world of self-learning. Pointers took and induced me to learn myself not only to complete the challenge problem but to make me understand the concepts which are more than the requirement for a particular puzzle. Humorously, it’s as simple as learning “out of the syllabus”.
Distinctive performer!
END OF THE SESSION
On the last day of pointer camp, I was rewarded with Rs 5,000 for being the distinct performer. It was the happiest moment since I kick-started my college life with an achievement! The emotion behind “All tests passed! You rock” is extremely valuable for me! Extremely grateful to KGISL Institute of Technology.
