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Jeff Cameron is the Google Student Ambassador at the University of Waterloo, where he studies Computer Science and Math. As part of his role as ambassador, he recently hosted a great event focused on Artificial Intelligence, and we wanted to share his story with you here. In the 2009 Artificial Intelligence Contest at the University of Waterloo, participants used both simple and sophisticated AI techniques to create programs that would intelligently play a simple game. The submitted programs competed in head-to-head tournaments to see how they all ranked compared to one another. Contestants could re-submit their code on the contest website as often as they liked, and the online leaderboard was updated once every hour with fresh tournament results. A screenshot of the hourly leaderboard after the contest had been open for a few days. The contest was initially supposed to stay open for two weeks, but was extended by another week due to unexpectedly high participation. Almost 300 participants were involved, with about 150 people submitting their entries to the final tournament. The contest webpage received over 50,000 hits from 38 countries. The final tournament took place at the Contest Finale Code Party, held at the University of Waterloo. Pictures from the Contest Finale Codeparty. The very talented Mr. Jesse Onland serenades some happy coders with his mad banjo skills. Some contestants huddle while adding the finishing touches to their entries. The contest organizer (me), with this year’s grand champion, Alex Stan. Our congratulations goes out to the winner of this year’s Google Artificial Intelligence Contest, Alexandru Stan! A big thank you also goes out to the University of Waterloo Computer Science Club for organizing and hosting the contest. Full contest results are available here . Posted by Jeff Cameron, Google Campus Ambassador at University of Waterlo

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University of Waterloo’s Artificial Intelligence Contest

And now a word from the Google Campus Ambassador at the University of Toronto, Eran Henig … My name is Eran Henig and I have had the privilege for the last year of being the Google Campus Ambassador at the University of Toronto. I was given the opportunity to write a post about my experiences during the last year, so I decided to blog about one of the best events I have held to date, the Google-Rubik’s-Cube workshop! During the event Google Rubik’s Cubes were distributed to the students and we all tried to solve them together. Colorful beginner’s method posters were taped to different surfaces so that the students would have a better chance of actually solving the cube using proper technique. The department’s Rubik’s Cube expert (he averages around 16 seconds!) acted as a teacher, gave some live demonstrations, and guided everyone. I lured students in with chips and pop, YouTube videos of the greatest Rubik’s cube experts, and really managed to draw quite a crowd to the workshop area, as you can tell by some of the photos below. If you’re the Ambassador at your school – or even if you just want to spread the word about Google to your classmates – I would strongly encourage holding events like this – your campus will thank you! Take from us here in the CS Department here at UofT, it was a blast! Posted by Eran Henig, University of Toronoto Google Campus Ambassador

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Google Ambassador holds Rubik’s Cube Workshop on campus