Okay guys, optimization, Discrete 
Optimization mailbag week five, so I'm 
back in the land of kangaroos, opera 
house coffee and footie, okay? 
Stay until the end because there's some 
big announcement at the end. 
But we're going to start with statistics 
as usual. 
So you see this curve here is leveling 
off which is nice. 
So this is the number of students active 
in the class. 
We are stabilizing here around a little 
bit more than a thousand right now. 
Okay. 
this is the number of submissions graded. 
You see them stepping up every time so 
it's nice, you know, growth here. 
This is also what is really interesting. 
So this is the number of submission per 
active students. 
You have seen that many times but you see 
this big jump coming up now. 
So this is really nice. 
So more people are active. 
The students that are still active are 
getting more active and you know, 
obviously we love that. 
This is the number of On Track parts per 
active student. 
And once again, you see these things. 
[SOUND] Going up every time. 
So this is exactly what we want to see. 
So this is really good. 
We are very happy. 
About that part as well. 
this other statistic, the participation 
per assignment, so are at the level of 
TSP, right. 
So look at the numbers here. 
We are almost at 1000, so a little bit of 
effort guys and we are there. 
Obviously, Warehouse Location there, 
Warehouse Locations there is a little bit 
more work to be done there, we are 
halfway where we want to be. 
but, you know, it's a very doable 
assignment, so hopefully, you know, some 
of you can pick it up and push it up to a 
thousand there. 
people have already starting working on 
the VRP. 
It's a very healthy number there, a 
quarter of where we want to be roughly. 
And interesting numbers on the puzzle 
challenge as well. 
This is the life plot, okay, so you can, 
you know, view it on the website in real 
time. 
So I won't go into very much detail. 
The only thing that I want to show you is 
that at this point we are at the point 
where we are basically lifting up the 
tail of this distribution. 
In a sense, that this is nice. 
So you see these blue things getting 
bluer and bluer and getting up and up and 
hopefully it's going to level at a much 
higher level. 
That's what we are hoping now, okay? 
So it's getting, this tail is in a sense 
getting thicker. 
Every tail is a distribution. 
We really want a very heavy tail 
distribution, okay? 
So that's what we have there. 
so mid course survey. 
We want to give you some result. 
We promised we would do that, okay? 
it's basically 10 percent of the active 
students who, responded to the survey. 
And the first question was, how do they 
find the course? 
And this is, this is, what it came out. 
So look at this this way, right? 
So, it's a little bit tedious. 
but it's very rewarding. 
It's also very time consuming. 
It's also very hard, but it's also very 
fun, okay? 
So, essentially that's the kind of things 
we wanted for the class, okay? 
Something where you learn a lot, where 
it's fun to do, but obviously, you know, 
we didn't want an award on the class, so 
it's hard, it takes time, okay? 
So not very much surprise for us, but 
this, this is nice, okay? 
This is what we wanted to see. 
You know mid course survey. 
W-, you know? 
That was essentially, you know? 
Trying to find out ways [INAUDIBLE] . 
Okay? 
And you know I think, what you can see, 
you know? 
Students, you know? 
satisfied learning a lot. 
A little bit behind, some on track. 
So this is interesting, right? 
So you have students there basically 
spread between a little bit behind and on 
track, okay? 
And of, you know, some students are 
learning moderately enough so we have to 
make the class harder. 
Just kidding, right, so, but essentially 
this is, this is what you see there, 
where people are at this point. 
this is the traditional graphics that you 
want to see in this kind of survey. 
What is the favorite class, favorite part 
of your class? 
And what you see in big, big, big 
programming assignments lecture, okay, so 
this is the stuff that you guys like. 
You also see, you know, constraint 
programming, local search, these are, you 
know, high level key words that are 
appearing there. 
Also heart, okay so interesting there. 
So, basically, you know? 
One of the things we were surprised is 
how much you love the programming 
assignments. 
If you want, we can give you even more, 
right? 
So, once again, just kidding, right? 
So you can see that I'm still completely 
jet lagged, right? 
so what we are going to give you now is a 
one week extension until, August 20th. 
And the reason we are doing this is 
because you really want to lift a little 
bit this curve, a little bit more, okay? 
So, we think it's very fair, even the 
difficulty of the class, the feedback 
that we that we received, okay? 
So we give you one week to just, you 
know, work really, really hard, okay? 
And so people were asking also whether 
class will stay open after August 20. 
It was August 13 before, and the answer 
is yes, you can complete all the 
assignments afterwards. 
Even if you want you can see your 
results, you can do all kinds of 
experimentation. 
People who would, you know, register for 
a new class would into a subsequent 
session, okay. 
So essentially one week extension that's 
good. 
Okay, so that gives you a lot more 
opportunity to consolidate everything you 
have learned. 
And we let the class be open after the 
end date anyway. 
So that, you know, even if you can't 
complete everything. 
If you still want to get some tents, and 
find out what it would take to, for you 
to get some tents of some of the 
assignments, you have the opportunity to 
do so. 
Okay? 
What next? 
Well, you know the VRP assignment is a 
difficult assignment. 
It's a very fun assignment. 
So this is an assignment which is get you 
really, really close, to real problems. 
So real-life problems, so one of the 
reason that, one of the things we 
promised at the beginning of the class is 
that we would actually bridge the gap 
between know, knowing almost nothing. 
To actually being able to tackle real 
life problems. 
This is where we are at. 
Okay, so some of the things that we use 
for polar restoration for instance, for, 
you know, you know, logistic problems, 
are basically built on top of the VRP 
that you're going to do. 
So this is, you know, this is like the 
reward at the end of this class. 
You are very close to solving a real life 
optimization problem, which is 
meaningful, and which is really, r-, 
really tough, okay? 
So this is like the cherry on the cake at 
the end. 
It's tough. 
But I think it's really telling you how 
much you have learned during the class. 
this, th-, these couple, these last 
couple of weeks. 
I was about to say this semester. 
But this is like professional 
deformation, right? 
once again, you know, steady progress on 
the assignment, we were very happy. 
Keep up the good work. 
You're almost there, okay. 
And, yeah, another announcement is also 
we are working on the, the course 
T-shirt. 
Stay tuned, we have a couple of designs 
that we are going to run by you very 
soon. 
so this also, you know, something that 
came out of the forum and we just wanted 
to let you know about this. 
A lot of activities in the forums as well 
came up. 
I don't know if I have them on the slides 
but I think people have really picked up. 
I mentioned that last week, I'm 
rementioning it again, it was very nice 
to see more people putting new threads 
and creating new threads and responding 
to threads and things like this. 
Okay, so keep up the last, you know, keep 
up the work that, on optimization. 
Make sure that You keep, you know, 
producing the reasons that you have 
produced. 
I think it's amazing. 
This is the last assignment. 
It's the last mile. 
So, you know, hopefully you, you, you 
survived that one last assignment.