This Does Compute

Computer-science students score high at programming competition

November 6, 2007

The Dickinson White team (front row, left to right) of James Doyle '10, Katie Lang '08 and Jeremy Pesner '09 finished third, while DIckinson Red (Matt Bachman '09, Richard Rast '09 and Kent Carmine '10 in the back) placed fifth.

Six Dickinson students crunched numbers (and some strong competitors) during the Northwest Regional round of the 32nd annual ACM (Association for Computing Machinery) International Collegiate Programming Contest (ICPC) at Shippensburg University on Oct. 27. Known as the Battle of the Brains, the IBM-sponsored contest challenges teams of students to use their programming skills and mental endurance to solve complex problems under stringent deadlines.

The students, divided into two teams, Dickinson Red and Dickinson White, defeated teams from Virginia Tech, Penn State and Drexel University, among others, but did not advance to the next round of competition.

Dickinson White (Katie Lang '08, James Doyle '10 and Jeremy Pesner '09) finished third out of 17 at Shippensburg and 27th out of 137 in the Northeast region.

Dickinson Red (Matt Bachman '09, Richard Rast '09 and Kent Carmine '10) placed fifth out of 17 at Shippensburg and 38th out of 137 in the Northeast region.

Dickinson bytes back

Shippensburg was one of eight sites in the Northeast that held programming events simultaneously. Results at each location were tabulated to determine team placement within the region. The top three teams from each region advanced to the world finals in Alberta, Canada, in April.

"Our teams did very well," said Dickinson team coach Grant Braught, associate professor of computer science. "Both finished higher this year than any of our teams have finished for quite a few years."

Each team received a packet of problems and was required to solve as many problems as possible within a given amount of time.

Braught is very familiar with the contest. He competed in the event as an undergraduate and has served as a coach since 2000, taking a Dickinson team each year to compete.

Gigs of experience

"Students gain experience working as a team to solve problems under significant time pressure, a skill that is very valuable in the computing industry," Braught said.

One of the challenges in competing is that "there is a trade off between trying to solve problems quickly and using good software-development techniques that take a little more time but increase the chances of producing correct solutions," he said, adding that, "finding a good balance between these two pressures is something that the teams need to deal with effectively."

The Battle of the Brains competition has become the largest and one of the most prominent computer competitions of its kind. Tens of thousands of students from universities in 82 countries on six continents will compete in regional contests held worldwide from September through December. Ninety regional champions will face off at the world finals for awards, scholarships, prizes and bragging rights to the "world's smartest trophy."

Andrew Williams '08