On Thursday, 21 January 2016, the best programmers in Finnish schools gathered at the department for the finals in the Datatähti (data star) 2016 competition. The open preliminaries, held last autumn, generated invitations to the finals for 19 competitors from different parts of Finland.

The competitors were given six challenging programming problems to solve. Each problem was worth 100 points, so the maximum amount of points was 600. The competitors had five hours to solve the problems, and the topics included string algorithms, geometry, combinatorics, and graph theory.

Kalle Luopajärvi of Seinäjoen lukio was the indisputable winner with 595 points. Second came Pietari Kaskela from Viikin normaalikoulun lukio with 440 points, and Juha Harviainen from Helsingin matematiikkalukio took third place with 404 points.

Full scores: http://datatahti.fi/loppu16.html

During the coming year, the participants in Datatähti will form the Finnish teams in international competitions. In May, the best programmers in the Baltic area will compete in Helsinki, and in August the International Olympiad in Informatics will be held in Russia.

The competition was held in the computer lab in the basement of Exactum.

The winning trio Kalle Luopajärvi (middle), Pietari Kaskela (left), and Juha Harviainen (right)