Computer Science team off to Russia

23 October 2013

Computer Science team off to Russia

University of Waikato Computer Science team Trigraph: Matthew Law, Ryan Smith, and Tom Levy with Senior Lecturer Bill Rogers (second from right), have made it into the ACM-ICPC world finals.

Success at solving computer programming problems has guaranteed a team from the University of Waikato’s Computer Science department a trip to Russia.

The University team, Trigraph, consists of second-year students Tom Levy, Matthew Law and Ryan Smith.

After placing among the top teams in the regional ACM programming competition, Trigraph has been selected as one of the top two collegiate teams from the South Pacific region to compete in the world finals of the ACM-ICPC (International Collegiate Programming Contest). The other team from the region is from the University of New South Wales.

Ryan says he is happy but surprised the team has made it to the world finals.

“I think it’s really amazing that we’re going to Russia and will be competing against international teams. We’re all shocked but very happy.”

The last time the University of Waikato was represented at the world finals was in 2000 when the competition was held in Orlando.

Senior Lecturer in Computer Science Mr Bill Rogers, who will accompany Trigraph to Russia, says the team members are all outstanding students.

“They were all summer scholars last year working for research groups in the Computer Science Department. The world finals will be a great experience for them. Just to participate in this significant competition is what it’s all about,” says Bill. “This competition is taken very seriously in other parts of the world.”

The team will head to Ekatarinberg in the Urals for the competition in June 2014 where they will be up against 120 teams from all over the world. Teams will have five hours to solve asmany programming problems as they can under competition conditions.

ACM, the Association for Computing Machinery, with more than 100,000 members, is the world’s largest educational and scientific computing society, bringing together computing educators, researchers, professionals, and students to inspire dialogue, share resources and address the field’s challenges.

The collegiate computer programming competition is hosted by Ural Federal University, sponsored by IBM and is regarded as the oldest, largest, and most prestigious programming contest in the world.

ENDS

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