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STUDENTS SWEEP REGIONAL PROGRAMMING COMPETITION |
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April 01, 2009
GROVE CITY, Pa. – Grove City College students recently swept Carnegie Mellon University’s Spring Invitational Programming Contest, placing first overall and in each of the competition’s categories. Grove City outpaced teams from the University of Pittsburgh, The University of Cincinnati and Oberlin College, among others.
The competition, held March 28 and sponsored by Morgan Stanley Technology, was divided into two categories: two-person and three-person teams. The teams were given a list of nine descriptions of problems to be solved by computer, using one of three programming languages, C++, C or Java. The students were given five hours to solve as many problems as they could while using a single Macintosh work station. Solutions were judged based on correctness; timeliness and the number of incorrect submissions were factored in for tiebreakers.
The two-person “Theorists” team of senior Phil Deets of Franklin, Pa., and junior Susannah Johnson of Willow Grove, Pa., won its category and first overall by solving seven of the nine problems with only two incorrect submissions. The team completed the seven problems in two hours and 50 minutes.
The three-person team, “Presentation Error,” with junior Jared Heinly of Mount Joy, Pa., and sophomores Aaron Mininger of Halifax, Pa., and Shawn Recker of Finleyville, Pa., solved seven problems, placing first in its category and third overall, following the Theorists and an Oberlin College team.
Sophomore Amelia Winchell of Hampstead, N.H., and freshman Dan Ecker of Abbottstown, Pa., competed as team “Nibbles and Bits” and finished in the top half of participating teams.
Twenty-seven teams participated from regional schools, including the University of Pittsburgh, Allegheny College, Oberlin College, the University of Cincinnati and Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology. Last year, Deets and Johnson placed second in the two-person teams and third out of 34 teams overall, and Mininger and Recker – competing as a two-person team– placed 11th overall.
Dr. Dorian Yeager, professor of computer science and mathematics, said that the Grove City students chose to use C++, though Java was the most popular at the competition. Dr. David Adams, assistant professor of computer programming, coached the teams and Yeager assisted.
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