Spring break in Prague - CS students advance to ACM programming finals

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign computer science students advance to ACM programming finals in Prague.

(PRWEB) November 5, 2003 --Last year it was Beverly Hills for spring break and the ACM international programming finals. This year the University of Illinois computer science team will take an extended spring break in Prague for the 27th annual competition. The team, comprised of graduate student Tony Chang, and undergraduates Jeff Tamer and Steve Downing, won the regional competition this weekend. They will compete with 71 other teams from around the globe in the oldest and most prestigious student programming contest.

Thousands of teams participate in the regional contests held throughout the fall. Teams are given just five hours to solve eight complex, real-world problems on a single computer. The CS trio correctly solved 7 of the 8 programming problems, beating the 2nd place team by 133 points.

"UIUC is awesome," said Marsha Woodbury, the teams faculty advisor. The contest was perfectly run due to the excellent organizational skills of senior Chris Mullen and his ACM team. The software worked so well that judging was a breeze." The Department of Computer Science Technical Support Group was also key to the successful event.

UI Team B, which included graduate students Zheng Shao and Tarun Agarwal, and undergraduate student Sean Monahan, took 3rd place by correctly solving 6 of the 8 problems.
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