WC Collegiate Programmers Take on Region's Best in the 30th Annual "Tech Olympics," November 12

Chestertown, MD, November 8, 2005 — For the fourth year in a row, Washington College's Department of Mathematics and Computer Science will be a host site for the Mid-Atlantic regional playoff round of the "Tech Olympics," the 2005-2006 Association for Computing Machinery's International Collegiate Programming Contest (ICPC), sponsored by IBM. Student programmers representing teams from Washington College, Rowan University, Temple University, and the University of Delaware will go head-to-head, laptop-to-laptop on Saturday, November 12, in the College's Goldstein Hall.

Now in its 30th year, the ACM competition is the largest and most prestigious contest of its kind, bringing the world's brightest collegiate programmers together to tackle a semester's worth of real-world programming tasks in one afternoon. The entire competition is conducted electronically with submissions made to a central site for independent judging.

Washington College's two teams, the Wolves and the Wildcats—coached by Computer Science Professor Shaun Ramsey—will be up against some of the Mid-Atlantic's best student programmers in a grueling five-hour competition that tests not only their problem-solving ability, but also their command of today's most advanced computer architecture. This year, Washington College will be represented by students Stephen Reaves '06, Washington, DC; Brian Standifer '06, Union Bridge, MD; Lucas Gerber '07, Galena, MD; Eric Shan '07, Ellicott City, MD; Sam Evans '09; and Molly Gavin '07, Severna Park, MD.

"The teams have five hours to solve six programming problems, and to say these are challenging is an understatement," said Professor Austin Lobo. "Most teams don't solve even one problem correctly but over the last few years our Washington College teams have averaged three correct solutions and that's an accomplishment that puts us among the top college and university teams from the entire Mid-Atlantic region."

There are as many teams in the Mid-Atlantic regional as there are in all of Europe.

Lobo added, "Our ability to host this contest rests on our exceptionally good computing infrastructure and the dedication and competence of the members of the Office of Information Technology."

Over the span of the next three months, regional competitions across the globe are expected to draw more than 5,000 teams all vying for a spot at the World Finals to be held April 9-13, 2006, in San Antonio, Texas.