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Once again the UK final of the Informatics
Olympiad has taken place. The final was held over the weekend of 12th and 13th April
and four unfeasibly talented and clever winners were selected to represent the UK
at the international final in Wisconsin, USA.
Lionhead Studios sponsors the Informatics
Olympiad and this year's event, held at Fitzwilliam College, Cambridge, and our
very own Thomas Barnet-Lamb helped organize the event and set some of the questions.
At a point quite far into the competition
nobody had answered anything and Thomas Barnet-Lamb and the other judges started
wondering if the questions were too hard. But soon afterwards the brain jam cleared
and the answers started flowing.
To see how well you'd have done,
click on some of the actual questions below. You'll need a PDF reader to see them.
Question
1 2 3
4 5
The winners were
Adam Bull, Roundhay. Paul
Jefferys, Birkhamstead Collegiate School. Giles Edkins, Hills Road VIth Form College.Mark
Thompson, Douglas Academy.
Reserve - Jack Young, Truro College
Other finalists
Stuart Golodetz, Merchant Taylors' School. Mark Allen, Highgate School.
Graham O'Connor, Whitgift School. Matthew Wightman, Leeds Grammar. Edward Sanders,
Westminster. Jinxiang Li, Davies Laing and Dick College. Andrew Tribick, Merchant
Taylors' School.Mark Thompson, Luton Sixth Form College.
Philip Taylor, Dr Challoner's Grammar School. Guy Bedford, Queen's College, Taunton.
David Simner, Nottingham High School
Full Details available here
Congratulations
to all who took part, and congratulations squared to the winners.
If you're merely mortal like
the rest of us, you might like to try Lionhead's Dimformatics Olympiad for non-geniuses
below:
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Maths Puzzle |
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Can you measure 45 minutes with two
fuses and a box of matches, knowing that each fuse burns to nothing in exactly one
hour if lighted from either end?
You have no other way of timekeeping
and the fuses can't be cut, marked or stopped once lit.
Answer: (click drag from here to
reveal)
Simultaneously set
one fuse alight at both ends and the other one from only one end. In 30 minutes
the first fuse burns out, indicating that only 30 minutes worth of the second fuse
is left to burn. At that point you set light to the remaining fuse from its other
end and it burns out in 15 minutes. That together with the 30 minutes already measured
equals 45 minutes.
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Curly, Ginger, Dick and Rod are all
supposed to be working. But one has been caught logging on to a special interest
website. Which staffmember is facing some enforced garden leave?
WORD SEARCH
The hidden words are: BC, BIGBLUEBOX,
CREED, DIMITRI, EDEN, FABLE, INTREPID, JAMIE, JONTY, KHAZAR, LETHYS, LIONHEAD, MOLYNEUX,
MOVIES, NEMESIS, ORB, RUFUS, SABLE, SLEG, TITAN, TYKE
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