SO there was the last and the most important day of the CEOI 2014 in Jena. We started with a rafting tour on the river Saale. At first it was pretty cold. So it wasn’t too much fun of getting each other wet. But then we stopped for a break. Had some very bad grilled bratwurst. You can see that making a good thuringian bratwurst isn’t easy and needs a lot of practice. But we had some fun letting us spin around and playing some soccer. (The vest-team lost…). But while resting the sky cleared and the sun was shining. With this there were a lot of waterbattles. But the coolest part was when we played catch on the boats. All together we drove 16 kilometers.

And at 6 o’clock the important and sad part came: the closing and awards ceremony. There were a lot of speeches (again). The golden medals went to two Polish and two Romanian competitors. Congratulations!!! And of course to everyone else who won a medal. Well everything ended with a banquet which was empty really fast. Afterwards some teams celebrated a bit in the city center.

So now there is only one thing I can say: it was fun to meet you all. Wish you good luck in the International Olympiad. Let’s hope you’ve learned something here and that you liked and enjoyed the week in Jena.

Have a good and safe way back home.

Today there was the second competition day. And we followed again the ranking. It was interesting to see that the last task was difficult for everyone. But I liked a phrase in the cake task: Leopold likes to eat cakes and Molly to watch Leopold eating cake. After 5 hours of programming for you and 5 hours waiting for us we had lunchtime. And this is the saddest part. We had the second time in row pasta… So some went for a pizza or a burger instead.

So then you had your time for an analysis and then the most groups went off to the hostel. So we the guides had some freetime playing “Mau-Mau” or just driving the elevator in the GoeGa XD. A lot of us decided not to eat at the VegeTable. So I can only reference the chips and curry sausage at Fritz Mitte.

But the planetarium show “chaos and order” was amazing. I hope you liked it too.

So yesterday was a very full day. We visited the cultural centre of Thuringia: Weimar. At first we had a guided tour. They told us about the greatest poets of Germany: Goethe and Schiller. Both weren’t born in Weimar but lived there until their death. They were supported by the ruler who was fond of literature and theatre. We saw places which were connected to the poets and a lot of other famous people like Bach, van de Velde, Gropius. The last two are the founders and developers of the “Bauhaus”. This term refers to an art style especially used in architecture. One of the main ideas of Bauhaus is to focus on function first, and then on design.

After lunch (it was OKAY) we went to the darkest part of Germans’ history. The history of national socialism, Hitler and the millions of people killed by starvation, hard work, medical experiments and cruel tortures. We had 30 minutes in the concentration camp “Buchenwald”. I can’t say if luckily only that short or not. Because on one hand it is an awful place with a really depressive and sad aura. But on the other hand you need more time to see everything.

Our day in Weimar ended with a concert of pupils of the Belvedere high school. It is a grammar school specialised in music. The pupils have to pass an exam to become members of the school. There are only about 120 students studying there. A boarding school is included. They get also support from the music college “Franz Liszt”. You could hear that the pupils are pretty talented. But I’m not a fan of classical music and a lot of us were tired.

So now I wish the participants good luck for the competition tasks.

You can find the live ranking of the competition here:
https://contest.ioi-training.de/ranking/

So you all started the competition. We, the guides, had to sit and wait, but a lot of us followed the results on the ranking site. It was really exciting to watch it. Afterwards we had some lunch in the mensa. Hope you liked it and didn´t starve. Then, the groups had some  leisure time and could use the analysis mode in order to compare their answers. But our team (the Croatians) didn´t want to see the the correction. So we played “Tischkicker” in the Goethe Gallery. You can get the football at the information desk. You just need to give them 5 Euro but you get the money back when you return it.

Afterwards we went to the Schleicher Lake in the Paradise park. Some played more or less volleyball. Other ones tried to do slacklining but it´s pretty difficult. But you could see some improvement in the two hours.

The last point of the program was the VIP dinner at the Scala restaurant. We had a terrific panorama view of Jena (or some part of it). The food was wonderful. The Swiss noticed that they served an interesting unique sauce: the wight vine sauce – XD. All of us were happy about the tradition break. It was a lovely evening.

“Hanfried” at the marketplace

So today had a pretty stuffed schedule. We or better you started with the practice competition. I´ve heard that the tasks were challenging. So let’s hope that those of tomorrow will be interesting, too.  I think the food was eatable and even enjoyable what you can´t say about every cafeteria food. For example like the meals in our school. We might have good students, great teachers and fabulous equipment BUT the food is horrible!

City Church

So after lunch we had a tour through Jena. Our guides were students of the Carl-Zeiss-Gymnasium. Till the opening ceremony we had some time. The groups did different stuff. Strangely we didn´t spend our time with our team (most of them kind of like to disappear…) so we joined the Hungarian team. We went down to the Saale river. This is one of the biggest rivers of Thuringia. In Jena it is 12 km long. There are a lot of castles which are situated on the Saale banks.

But the highlight of the day was the opening ceremony. It was lead by Sophia Mirtschink, another student of the Carl-Zeiss-Gymnasium. There came a lot of people to talk to you. I was really surprised by the speech of the principal Dr. Müller. That was the first time we heard him talk in English. So an extra applause for him! He often includes number theories in his speeches, trying to find some specialties about the date or some thing like that, but sadly not this time.

Johannistor and tho old wall

Then the Thuringian minister of education Mr. Matschie welcomed you. And a lot of other people. But the most of you were interested in the mini presentation about social networks… I understand some bits of it but I´m not the computer genius here ;).  The introductions of the teams were very funny. You have a great humor, guys!

Best answers:

“Why do you like computer science? – Because so I can visit other countries.”

Great hats, Croatia. And thumbs up for the grandma who introduced her grandkid to programming. The genius lies in the blood…

I hope you all tried some bratwurst with mustard. It´s really sad that it started to rain. Let’s hope the weather will become better.

Tomorrow will be the first contest. Good luck to you all! Have fun. Let the games begin…

(Fotos will follow)

Thuringia I would compare more to the province XD. But of course there are some modern and advanced cities. For example Jena… It is a capital of science and education. The university counts about 25 thousands students as a big one. There are a lot of different study fields. If the internet doesn’t lie there are about 200. The scientist work on international projects (well, that’s what we were told). Leibniz, Max-Planck-Institute, the IPHT and a lot of other institutes are located here.

But now look on your camera lens. Some of them or even a lot of them are made by the Carl Zeiss company. And guess what? Jena is were where Carl Zeiss, a precision mechanic, founded his company. They produced microscopes. Later with the help of Ernst Abbe and Otto Schott they could made the first mathematical perfect lenses.
ZEISS is one of the supporters of the CEOI 2014.

Germany is divided in 16 states. Thuringia is one of them. It is the 6th smallest state. And there are more than 2 million people living here. The capital is Erfurt. Thuringia is also called the Green Heart of Germany. Well “Heart” because it’s located in the middle of Germany and “Green” cause it’s close to nature. There are some national parks like the “Hainich” or the “Thuringian Forest” which is like a little mountain.

Thuringia

Thuringia is known for its food. There are the potato dumplings with meat (mostly pork or beef), a sauce and red cabbage. It is delicious, really! But a dish which is famous all around the world is the “bratwurst”. You have to try some at the barbecue today.

Potato dumplings with meat and red cabbage

Bratwurst with mustard and bread

So now I’d like to present you the place where you landed… it’s Germany. I don’t know for what Germany is famous for in the world. There are some dark moments of the history which everybody knows about. But I will talk about those early enough.

Before China came up Germany was the Export master. But till now German products stand for quality.

There were a lot of great men who lived or were born in Germany: Gutenberg, Goethe, Schiller, Kant, Humboldt, Gauß. I even googled some famous computer scientists. As Wikipedia says, the developer of the MP3 format is German: Karlheinz Brandenburg.

But I think you do all enough informatics already XD.

Hello and welcome to the CEOI 2014!

For the start: We hope you all had a pleasant journey to Jena. We (especially the guides) are happy to welcome you here. Wish all of you an interesting and challenging competition. So this should become a blog-journal. Let’s hope it will. We will recap the days’ events and present some pictures. If you have any questions about Germany or Jena or anything else feel free to ask!