ASU Students to Use Their Brains

A team of Angelo State University computer science students will compete in the regional round of the 38th annual Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) International Collegiate Programming Contest (ICPC) on Saturday, Nov. 2, at Baylor University in Waco.

The ASU team will compete in the South Central Regional Contest of the “Battle of the Brains” against teams from many universities in Texas, Oklahoma and Louisiana, including Baylor, Rice University, Louisiana State University, Texas A&M University, University of Oklahoma, University of Texas at Austin and University of Texas at Dallas.

Each team is made up of three students who will be challenged to use their computer programming skills and mental endurance to solve complex, real-world problems under a five-hour deadline.  The team that solves the most problems correctly in the least amount of time will win a spot at the 2014 ACM-ICPC World Finals June 22-26 in Ekaterinburg, Russia.

Members of the ASU team are Alan Belew, Dalton Wood and Erik Brefo, plus alternate Myles Banner.  They will be accompanied to the regional contest by faculty sponsor Dr. Rob LeGrand, ASU assistant professor of computer science.

ASU teams have been competing at the regional level since 1986 and have consistently fared well, though not advancing to the World Finals.  In 2010, ASU had its best showing since 1996 when it placed first out of five undergraduate-only teams and 27th out of 71 teams overall.

Last year, nearly 30,000 students from more than 2,300 universities in 91 countries participated in the regional contests.  At the 2013 World Finals, held in St. Petersburg, Russia, in June, a team from Russia took first place, one from China earned second and one from Japan took third place.  The top U.S. team was from Pittsburgh’s Carnegie Mellon, which finished in 11th place, winning a bronze medal and taking the North American Regional title.