School of Information Technology Programming Students Headed to World Finals
Illinois State University’s computer programming team has earned an invitation to the World Finals of the Battle of the Brains. Each year the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) runs the International Collegiate Programming Contest (ICPC), a worldwide computer programming competition sponsored by IBM. Teams at the top of their regional contest are invited to the World Finals. Worldwide 1,900 universities from 82 countries and six continents entered 7,820 teams in this year’s contest, including 1,113 teams from North America. Only 100 teams advance to the World Finals.
Ryan Newman, Clint Riley, and Sarah Steffen began preparing over a year ago by taking School of Information Technology course ITK-385 Advanced Problem Solving and Teamwork. After completing ITK-385, they formed their team, Onward and Upward, and continued studying together on an independent study program mentored by Mrs. Goodwin for two additional semesters leading up to the November 6, 2010 Regional Competition. Their strong performance there earned them the prestigious invitation to the World Finals, which will be held in Sharm El Sheikh, Egypt, in February, 2011.
The School of Information Technology at Illinois State University sent five teams to compete in their regional held at University of Illinois, Springfield. All ISU teams turned in exemplary performances, finishing in the upper range of the 142 team field. The team of Seth Hare, Chris Murphy, and Chris Kramer placed 30th. The team of Chris Pawlak, Kevin Campbell, and Luke Shriver placed 31st. The team of Ryan Pouliot, Justin Deresinski, and John Shroeder placed 38th, and the team of Tao Wang, Shawn Rhoney, and Brandon Harnack placed 49th.This is the second time Mrs. Goodwin has coached a team of School of Information Technology students to the world finals of the ACMICPC, the first time being the 2008 world finals. Other U.S. Schools qualifying for this year’s world finals include Princeton, MIT, Stanford, Duke, University of Chicago, University of Michigan, University of Minnesota, University of Illinois, University of Wisconsin and Carnegie Mellon.
