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Rice programmers compete in ‘Tech Olympics’ in San Antonio

April 20, 2006 - Three computer programmers from Rice University competed against the world’s top techies at the International Collegiate Programming Contest World Finals, sponsored by the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM), in San Antonio last week.  The Rice Team was one of 80 teams competing for the world title in a grueling contest requiring team coordination, algorithmic skill, and programming dexterity.

The team that walked away with that title was Saratov State University.  The Russian team was able to solve six of eight problems and beat the number two team, Jagiellonian University of Krakow, Poland, by 341 minutes.  The Rice Team, comprised of Wiess College students Paul Etienne Vouga, Gregory Malecha, and Ryan Prichard, received an honorable mention from the judges.

ACM programming contests are intense five-hour sessions, which require teams of three undergraduates to use their computer programming skills to solve eight or more complex problems under a demanding deadline, all while sharing a single computer. The students are judged not only on finding the correct solutions, but on their programming speed.  If teams submit an incorrect solution to judges, they are given penalty minutes for each mistake.

The Rice Team advanced to the World Finals after placing first at the South Central USA Regional Programming Contest in November.  The last time a Rice team qualified for the world finals was in 1985.

When teams submit a correct answer to a problem, judges tie a colorful balloon to their station	Malecha and Prichard crank out pseudocode on scratch paper while teammage Vouga types
A moment of frustration

 

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