Six MCS students went to Macalester College today to participate in the annual ACM Programming Contest. The contest originally started at Texas A & M in 1970. It spread through North America and has branches and chapters throughout the world. “The contest fosters creativity, teamwork, and innovation in building new software programs, and enables students to test their ability to perform under pressure. Quite simply, it is the oldest, largest, and most prestigious programming contest in the world.”
Java the Hut (Nick Hamberg ’13, Caio Thomas ’14, Tia Thompson ’13) and Binary Three (Yishen Cui ’15, Kevin Dexter ’14, Helen Wauck ’14) were among 13 teams from six schools (Carleton College, College of St. Benedict’s and St. John’s University, Gustavus Adolphus College, Luther College, Macalester College, St. Olaf College), and all teams spent five hours working to solve nine challenging problems. Binary Three solved three problems, earning 3rd place at the site and 26th place out of 239 teams in the North Central region, while Java the Hut solved one problem, earning 10th place at the site and 125th place in the region.
Computer Science faculty members Dr. Choong-Soo Lee and Dr. San Skulrattanakulchai were both pleased with the teams’ performance and are already looking ahead to next year’s competition.