HHC 2017 RPL Programming contest information and results thread

[Gene]

First, here's a website about Egyptian Fractions that I think is great! Link

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The way the contests work at a real HHC gathering goes something like this.

1) We announce that program submissions (a physical machine with the program in it already AND a printed/hand written listing of the program AND the author's name on the machine and listing) are due to the judge at say Noon.

2) Noon happens to be when we break for lunch.

3) So as we break for lunch, those entering the contest are fighting their way to the judge who has to be careful to keep the machines safe (I dropped a 41C two years ago and broke it - ugh - didn't enjoy getting that fixed).

4) The judge tries to go get some lunch and then runs the inputs to the RPL and RPN contests on the machines and tries to record results / score them.

5) This is often a slow process since people want to be friendly and are curious. Personally, I don't like to hide, but I probably should.

6) The contest results are usually determined in an hour or so and then announced around 3pm. The results are kept secret until then.

7) Winner of each contest gets to pick a prize from the prize table AFTER the Best Speaker picks one but before all the other attendees will pick one.

8) The judge then starts trying to think of a contest for next year!

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Well, I hope everyone is not too disappointed, but here are the five numbers I used as test inputs. None of them are aimed at "boundary" conditions, but were trying to be a fairly reasonable input.


As to what scoring adjustment I would consider changing? I would have put more penalty on error. As it is, shortcuts to leave errors are not as penalizing as I would probably think they should have been. Oh well.


Number 1: 0.4488 (this is a 48 inside another 48)
Factors returned by the five submissions: 3+9+230+129375

Number 2: 0.422618262 (this is the sine of 25 degrees - a number I use in displays for photographs.
Factors returned: (1) 3+12+169+29040+3236245955 (2) 3+12+169+20940 (3) 3+12+169+29040+3239579892

Number 3: 0.41421356 (this is the square root of 2 minus 1)
Factors returned: (1) 3+13+253+218314+62500000000 (2) 3+13+253+218314+63850599813

Number 4: 0.853 (why not?)
Factors Returned: (1) 2+3+51+17000+1000000000000 (2) 2+3+51+17000

Number 5: 0.5 (this is to see if program works with one term!)
Factors returned: (1) 2 and (2) One program failed