My First Blog - Atcoder Beginner Contest 419

Hello everyone! 👋
This is the first blog of my life, and honestly, I’m very excited (and a little nervous) to start this journey.

I got this thought because I have always loved writing about how I solve DSA problems on LinkedIn. Till now, I’ve posted nearly 60 posts about DSA there. But over time, I noticed something interesting—only about 1 out of 10 people were actually interested in reading the detailed approaches. Most people just like the post and move on without going deeper.

That made me realize:
👉 People who are genuinely curious and want to learn the thought process in detail deserve a better space.
👉 And that’s why I’ve started this blog—so learners like me can follow along in more depth.

I’m not a pro coder who tops every contest. I’m just a beginner who has recently started exploring DSA and competitive programming (CP). Through this blog, I’ll be documenting my progress, writing about contests I attempt, problems I solve, and the lessons I learn. Then, a year later, I’ll look back and see how far I’ve come.

So, let’s begin with today’s contest experience!

AtCoder Beginner Contest 419 🏆

Today, I participated in ABC 419, and it went really well. Let me quickly share my experience with each problem:

🟢 Problem A – AtCoder Language

This was a very simple problem.
We were given an English word and asked to convert it into its AtCoderish version:

• red → SSS

• blue → FFF

• green → MMM

• Anything else → Unknown

This was just a straightforward if-else check. I solved it in just 7 minutes.

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🟢 Problem B – Get Min

This problem gave us Q queries of two types:

1. 1 x → Put a ball with number x into a bag.

2. 2 → Remove and print the smallest ball from the bag.

The approach I took:

• I used an ArrayList to store the numbers.

• For each query of type 2, I scanned through the list to find the minimum element, removed it, and printed it.

This worked fine for the contest, but I know it’s not the most efficient solution. Later, I’ll try to optimize it using a PriorityQueue (Min Heap) for faster operations.

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🟡 Problem C – King’s Summit

This one was a bit tough for me because it involved Chebyshev distance (a concept I wasn’t aware of before).

The problem:
We had N people on a grid, and each person could move to any of the 8 directions in one unit of time. We had to find the minimum time required for all of them to meet at one square.

My approach:

• I read about Chebyshev distance and realized it’s basically the max difference in coordinates.

• I applied a binary search on the time and checked if all people could meet within that time.

After some struggle, I managed to solve it. This felt really good because I learned something new today.

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Wrapping Up ✨

That was my first experience writing a blog post.
Today’s contest gave me confidence, and starting this blog feels like the right step.

I’ll keep sharing my progress, mistakes, learnings, and approaches here.
Let’s see how much I improve in the coming months.

See you in the next one! 👋