During the competition, for which the participating students had earned their place in a preliminary round in their own country, the students were required to work in groups of three to solve various algorithmic problems.

After the opening ceremony, the teams were given a couple of practice assignments to see whether all their equipment was working. At this point one of the German teams discovered that here in the Netherlands we use a different keyboard than the German keyboard. Someone else discovered that an English laptop charger doesn't fit into a Dutch socket. Aside from these minor inconveniences, the test phase fortunately went smoothly.

On Saturday there was time enough to show the participants something of Eindhoven. They had the chance to choose, for example, a visit to a brewery, a company visit, a pub quiz or a city walking tour. The sign-ups for the company visit and the pub quiz far outnumbered those for the other options. 

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Balloons

On Sunday the competition itself was held and while it was in progress an atmosphere of tension and excitement was palpable throughout the Auditorium. Volunteers ran round taking balloons to the participants. Once a question had been answered correctly, one of the balloons was tied to the table of the relevant team. Thus it was clear which teams were scoring lots of points. As well as the balloons, many of the tables carried mascots, which made for a colorful vista.

While most teams had brought along a cuddly animal as a mascot, a team from Delft displayed with pride its collection of bath ducks intended to bring them luck during the contest.

During the awards ceremony it turned out that the Delft team had not managed to secure a place in the final in Portugal. Nor did our Eindhoven teams manage this feat. A team from Cambridge University succeeded in solving all the problems within the given time, and this earned them first prize.