The university’s team Game of Nolife won Western European programming contest for students

In the finals in Thailand in spring 2016, the students from the University of Helsinki will face the best teams in the world.

The University of Helsinki has won the inter-university NWERC 2015 programming contest that was held in Linköping recently. It was attended by 95 teams from Western Europe. The Game of Nolife team from the University of Helsinki consisted of computer-science and maths students Tuukka Korhonen, Olli Hirviniemi and Otte Heinävaara.

-It feels great, especially since there were teams from strong universities like KTH in Stockholm, Oxford, and Cambridge, says Antti Laaksonen, the coach for the winning team.

The topic of the contest is the programming of algorithms, and the contestants have to solve a number of difficult programming problems. They are given five hours to solve them. Each team has one computer at their disposal for programming the algorithm.

The Game of Nolife team prepared for the November contest in Linköping with a training camp at the MIPT university in Moscow. The ten-day camp was organised right before the contest, and it helped the contestants especially with solving the geometric problems.

-The level of contest programming in Russia is very high, and the team had the opportunity to compete against some of the best Russian teams during the camp, Laaksonen says.

The finals will be held in Thailand in May 2016. The teams in the finals have won regionals around the world. The goal of Game of Nolife is to win a medal, which will require a lot of training during the spring.

Main page of the contest: http://www.nwerc.eu/

Results: http://www.nwerc.eu/scoreboard/

Image: The Game of Nolife team, left to right Otte Heinävaara, Tuukka Korhonen, and Olli Hirviniemi.

 

Image: Pauliina Pajunen

Text: Minna Meriläinen-Tenhu

Translation: Marina Kurtén

Created date

03.12.2015 - 15:49

Top research

The research at the department combines theory with interaction with the application fields in a well-balanced whole. Both the department and Basic Research Unit in the Helsinki Institute for Information Technology were awarded the highest grade in the research review carried out in 2005. Algodan (Algorithmic Data Analysis) is a national Finnish Academy centre of excellence 2008-2013.

Innovative teaching

The Finnish Higher Education Council re-elected the department as a national centre of excellence in higher education, this time for the years 2010-2012. The status of centre of excellence is a significant achievement. It was only conferred on 10 units in Finland this time, and the department was one of two units that were selected for their second period.

The Department of Computer Science opens it's doors in the virtual world

exactum2.jpg

Starting this Friday, you can visit the Department of Computer Science virtually. An adapted facsimile of the Exactum building and the Kumpula Science Library based on their ground plans has been made for the Second Life virtual world. In Second Life, anyone can visit the premises of the Department of Computer Science.

Biomine received funding from Tekes

The Biomine project has been granted EUR 110.000 by Tekes, the Finnish Funding Agency for Technology and Innovation. The project, headed by Prof. Hannu Toivonen, is among the very first ones to receive funding for preparation of commercialization, from a new instrument just launched by Tekes.