UD team competes in ACM International Collegiate Programming Contest

The University of Delaware programming team participated in the annual ACM International Collegiate Programming Contest on Nov. 1, finishing 11th among 188 teams in the Mid-Atlantic regionals.

Representing UD were Kahn Duong, Andre Marianiello, Ryan McKenna and Alexander Stachnik.

David Saunders, professor in the Department of Computer and Information Sciences, said teams competed intensely on a suite of eight programming challenges during the five-hour contest period.

The problems were difficult and most teams completed none, Saunders said, while the UD students rapidly solved two of the challenge problems to achieve their top tier score.

UD finished first at the Washington College site in Chestertown, Maryland, one of the contest’s eight regional sites.

“The ACM Collegiate Programming Contest is a wonderful challenge,” Saunders said. “It requires significant mastery of computer science knowledge along with ingenuity in application of that knowledge. The problems posed require creative algorithm design followed by rapid and precise programming and careful and thoughtful testing.”

He had high praise for the UD squad. “We are mightily proud of our team’s excellent showing. They are game and they are good — and proved it in this contest.”

Worldwide, the contest includes more than 32,000 of the finest students and faculty in computing disciplines from 2,286 universities from 94 countries on six continents.

The contest is designed to foster creativity, teamwork and innovation in building new software programs, and enables students to test their ability to perform under pressure. It is the oldest, largest and most prestigious programming contest in the world.