ICPC 2012

Back row: Brett Riotto, Nils Beasley, Sarah Reichert, Justin Snell, Josh Herr, Taylor Legg, Ian Hall, Chris Prosser Front row: Luis Garcia, Siena Richard, Donovan Miller, Jake Harper

October 27, 2012

The Computer Science Department sponsored four teams for the 37th annual Association for Computing Machinery International Collegiate Programming Contest. "The Battle of the Brains is the Olympics of the computer programming world," says Michael Karasick, vice president of strategy and technology at IBM Software Group. "These students push their minds to the limit, manipulating technologies such as analytics, system optimization and collaboration to effectively solve a semester's worth of computer programming in just five hours. The amount of talent that we have the opportunity to witness each year is truly impressive and a testament to the value of this competition." The contest challenges teams to use their programming skills and rely on their mental endurance to solve complex, real-world problems under a five-hour deadline.

UW competes in the Rocky Mountain Regional contest, which had four sites this year. Due to weather, UW was unable to make it to the Salt Lake City site, so UW competed from Laramie this year. The regional contest covers the geographic area of Arizona, Utah, Colorado, Wyoming, Eastern Nevada, Idaho, Montana, Alberta, Saskatchewan, and New Mexico (excluding Dona Ana county). In all, there were 47 teams competing in the regionals for the top spot with the winner advancing to world finals in St. Petersberg, Russia.

The UW teams:
• WyoGold: Brett Riotto (Wilson), Nils Beasley (Colorando Springs, CO), Sarah Reichert (Torrington)
• WyoBown: Luis Garcia (Evanston), Josh Herr (Cheyenne), Justin Snell (Cheyenne)
• WomboCombo: Taylor Legg (Laramie), Jake Harper (Temecula, CA), Ian Hall (Spearfish, SD)
• HoneyBagers: Chris Prosser (Thermopolis), Donovan Miller (Littleton, CO), Siena Richard (Moose)
• Coach for all the teams: UW Computer Science Lecturer Jim Ward

Over the five hours of the competition, the four teams worked hard and submitted a number of programs. When the final results were counted, Wyoming's top team, WyoGold, had finished sixth in the Salt Lake City site and 21th in the regional contest. The rest of the teams finished very well, with WyoBrown finished 9th at site and 26th overall, HoneyBagers 10th at site and 27th over all, and WomboCombo finishing 19th at site and 39th overall. Congratulations to all the UW teams, who did very well in the competition.

Results from the ICPC 2011