MATLAB Programming Contest Blog

April 9th, 2012

Weekend prizes

Our congratulations to Michael C. for his Saturday Leap winner What have I done…. Here’s what you’ve done Michael: you submitted Saturday’s single best improvement to the contest algorithm, and for that you win a prize and our undying admiration.

The Saturday Leap prize and the Sunday Push prize are theoretically designed to reward two different kinds of behavior. Some people like to pack their improvements into a single hard-hitting file. We created the Saturday Leap with these people in mind. Others like to make many small improvements over time: slow and steady wins the day. We want to reward people who do this too, because it’s an important part of contest. The prizes occur in the order they do (Leap first, Push second) because as the contest progresses, it becomes harder and harder to make big improvements. Harder for most of us, that is. But not if your name is Yi Cao. We’re happy to have Yi Cao back on the winner’s podium for his remarkable single-entry Sunday Push winner local optimal.

If you don’t know much about the American sport of baseball, and I realize many of you do not, here is a quick lesson: if you can count on hitting home runs, you don’t have to worry about the rest of your offense. Yi Cao hit one out of the park on Sunday. His entry made a bigger improvement than any other entry on Sunday, than anybody else’s combined efforts on Sunday, than everybody else’s combine efforts on Sunday. You’d have to go back to Friday afternoon before you found code that improved as much. For this, Yi Cao can be justifiably proud. We’re proud to have him competing here, and we’re happy to send him yet another prize. Congratulations Yi Cao!