The document discusses an orientation for a programming club. It introduces that the club organizes sessions on algorithmic techniques and holds programming contests. It provides two examples to demonstrate what algorithms can accomplish, such as solving mazes efficiently and having computer players in a game take optimal paths. The club aims to help students improve their algorithm solving abilities through these sessions and contests.

1. Orientation – Programming club, DA-IICT 04/08/11 Siddharth Kothari [email_address]

2. What we do? We organize sessions on algorithmic techniques and hold programming contests. Oh Agorithmic techniques, like? Oh yeah, we will start with memoization and dynamic programming, number theory, reinforcement learning, build bayesian net classifiers, blah blah... Don't freak out . This is not how we are going to go about it. 04/08/11

3. Algorithms?! So what are algorithms? Let's instead try to understand what can algorithms accomplish. Fair? Demo-1: youtube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GR3LlbRKf5w) - See this video . The game in video is Mummy maze deluxe. If you have a chance to play the game, you will realize that in some cases you will be caught by mummy and as the games get harder, it is difficult to solve the maze without getting caught. So, how can algorithms help here? Let's put it this way: If you know the correct algorithm , this maze can be solved under a second , what's more, you can even find the shortest path to the exit. Amazing, right? [We will hopefully discuss this algorithm in some time.] 04/08/11

4. Algorithms?! So what are algorithms? Let's instead try to understand what can algorithms accomplish. Fair? Demo-2: Look at this game (http://goo.gl/pv9lY) from the Ants Google AI challenge. If you carefully observe, the players are behaving in a clever way. For example, observe how a player approaches the food dots. It will most likely be the shortest possible path. What's more amazing? - The players are actually computer-bots designed to play the game following a set of rules. Are you up to the challenge to build a similar bot? 04/08/11

6. What we do? We organize sessions and hold programming contests. 1. Sessions like - (Check) 2. Programming contests? 04/08/11

7. Programming contests What exactly are they? Since we understand that algorithms are so fundamental for every CS student, and companies want to hire the people who are best at this, there is a dilemma about how to judge a person's skill. That's where programming contests come into picture, to accurately estimate a person's algorithm solving ability. We will talk about this in our introductory session. Please wait till then. It's just that we don't want you to freak out! :) 04/08/11

8. What we do? We organize sessions and hold programming contests. Sessions like - (Check) Programming contests - (Partial Check) We are good to start now :) 04/08/11

9. See you in next session Our first session will be on Wednesday, 10th August. Please check the events page for the topic and timings. Since you have already registered (otherwise you won't be reading this), we will also send you an e-mail notification with regards to the session. Additionally, if you want to ask anything, you can add it as a comment to the post, or send me a mail. Be there for the session without fail. 04/08/11