Students compete in computer programming competition
The thrill of competition, the sweet taste of victory, the agony of defeat, the glory of representing your school on the field of battle, the soothing click of keys beneath your fingers.
The homecoming football game against North Texas wasn’t the only competition held this Saturday.
The USU chapter of ACM (Association of Computer Machinery) held their annual programming contest Saturday to decide who they would send to represent USU and the regional competition on October 30 in Provo.
The ACM is a society for computer professionals and students. It was founded in 1947 and now boasts over 78,000 members.
The USU chapter hit a rough patch and disappeared from the organization for a while and was only reestablished four years ago by Mark Salisbury who restarted the USU CS (Computer Science) club and began organizing teams to compete.
Competitors worked for two hours to get through six problems demonstrating the abilities at mathematical induction (math using a repeated set of instructions in the same way as a computer) and other math skills as well as two programming problems.
At the local level, contestants were asked to take a two exam to test both their programming and math skills. This test was completed alone with the top nine finishers forming three teams of three to send to complete in regionals.
During the competition, the teams work together to program their computer to solve given problems. Points are award to the team that solves the most problems in the given amount of time. The team with the most points wins.
Winners in Provo will have the opportunity to compete on a national level and if successful there, internationally at the world championships to be held in Shanghai, China for prizes, scholarships and the all-important bragging rights. Last year a team from Russia took top prize defeating teams from 75 countries.
Last year, the highest finishing team from Logan took 31st place out of over 80 teams at the Provo competition. This year the Aggies hope to do better.
But for many programmers, winning isn’t the only thing.
“Every one who went last time said they had a blast,” said Steve Prescott, a graduate student in computer science who is over activities for the local ACM chapter.
Because not every one who wanted to compete was able to attend the event, further tests were given later Saturday. This meant that after two long hours of computing and calculating, the contestants had to go home not knowing if they had won or not. The contestants will be informed by e-mail some time this week.
-steveshinney@cc.usu.edu