UF students fare well at regional computer programming contest

October 17, 2005

GAINESVILLE, Fla. — Two University of Florida computer programming teams placed in the top 10 on Saturday at the Southeast USA Regional Programming Competition.

With three teams in the top 12, UF had the second best aggregate school performance.

Four teams of three students each competed with universities from the Southeast to complete 10 complex problems within five hours. Each team’s overall score was based on getting the correct solution in the fastest amount of time.

UF Team Emu won third place; Team Penguin won eighth place; Team Kiwi won 11th place; and Team Ostrich tied for 51st place. Team Emu was comprised of two sophomores and one graduate student.

“Hopefully, this will generate even more interest among star programmers here on campus so they will get involved next year,” said Benjamin Lok, programming team coach and assistant professor of computer and information science and engineering.

Last year, UF finished 13th, 18th, 30th and 36th place.

This year, more than 80 teams from Florida, Georgia, Alabama, South Carolina and Mississippi competed at the Florida Institute of Technology’s Clemente Center in Melbourne in a preliminary round for the 30th Annual Association for Computing Machinery International Collegiate Programming Contest.

On Saturday, the Georgia Institute of Technology won first place and an entry to the international competition, which will be held April 9-13 at Baylor University in San Antonio, Texas. The University of Central Florida won second place.

The contest started as a competition at Texas A&M University in 1970. Participation has grown to include thousands of students and faculty in computing disciplines at more than 1,582 universities from 71 countries on six continents.

IBM sponsors the contest to better prepare students for information technology careers.

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