My first programming contest......

Today I have participated at AB Bank-IUT 2nd National ICT(Information n Communication Technology) Fest 2009 programming contest which is the first ever programming contest I've ever participated but true to say the experience was not so good as a first time perticipent because the question was hard(to me!!!) n my team was not in track that's why we haven't done well in it.
There were 10 problems in that contest.They were as follows--
A. Athletics Tracks
B. Judgment Day (Toughest!!)
C. Dividing the Land
D. Home! Sweet Home!
E. Mirror (Easiest)
F. Krypton Number System
G. Power Faster
H. Stick Madkes Gold
I. Arithmetic Subsequence
J. Water Land
My team(UIU_Surge),solved the problem "E" which one was the easiest one becuase 80% of the participated team had solved it.We also tried problem "A" & "I" but there was some mistakes in geomertical calculation in "A" thats why we hadn't got the right answer(We had some fractional mistakes) & in case of "I",we just tried simply using the algorithm "Brute Force" but it was a problem of DP(Dynamic Programming) thats why we got TLE(Time Limit Exceed) for our first submission.
Me & my teammates(Tausiq Ahmed Shahab n Saidul Islam) are so upset after this performance because we believed that we could solve at least 3 problems(We still believe so) but it was disasterious that we have solved only one!!!So mush bad day for dying I think...............
But from that contest I've(we've) learnt a lot of things that would help me(us) in future to build up my(our) programming effiency.The first point to notify was that the lack of practise.We're in lack of practise,though Sidky Sir(Our ACM instructor & one of the honourable judge of UVa Regional Contests) & Ishtiaque Sir(Our teacher n Team Coach,Ex Team Member of BUET Programming Team) had taken several online contests but we're not prepared enough to solve those kinds of problems which were given in the contest.I think we need to solve lots of problems which are contest related.Because to do easy problems & to increase the number of ACM solve doesn't increase the ability of solving problems.Problems like DP,graph,binary sorts are needed to solve rapidly because these types of problems are often given in the contests.We need to learn lots of efficient algorithms & need to apply it properly because without knowing & applying efficient algorithms,it is not possible to do well in the contests
There are also some very important things what are needed to improve the contest skills.Such as to solve problems in group i.e. to discuss & solve problems among the group members.If it can be done regularly then I think team spirit can be developed as well as the team members can know about the other members ability well which is very much needed in a contest because it is not possible to do well in a contest without the team work.
Last of all I hope our team should do very well in recent future because we'll try our level best to bring out the best from us.We should practice a lot & will make us prepare for the upcoming contests(Next contest would be the ICPC at NSU I think!!).Hope,next time things will go positive with us :p

Rafiul Sabbir
(Contest Team Member-UIU_Surge)