WATERLOO, Ont. -- The University of
Waterloo defends its two-time world champion reputation this weekend by sending
student teams to the East Central North America Regional competition of the ACM
International Collegiate Programming Contest.
On Saturday (Nov. 8), two UW
teams will be competing at the East Central North America regional competition
of the ACM International Collegiate Programming Contest. The East Central competition is hosted
concurrently at four sites; Waterloo's teams will travel to Sheridan College in
Oakville to participate.
Both UW teams will compete in a field of 128 teams
from 71 universities, including Toronto, McMaster, Carnegie-Mellon and Case
Western Reserve of the U.S. Two or three top teams from the regional
competition will advance to the ACM World Finals, to be held next March
28-April 1 in Prague, Czech Republic. The ACM contest is sponsored by IBM.
Each of UW's teams has three
students: Waterloo Black comprises freshmen Ralph Furmaniak (pure mathematics
and computer science) and Matei Zaharia (computer science), and graduate
student Lars Hellsten (computer science).
Waterloo Gold comprises
undergraduates Tor Myklebust (pure mathematics), Jonathan Lee (pure mathematics
and computer science), and William Slofstra (computer science).
UW has a strong reputation to
defend at the ACM contest, taking the North American Championship four times
and the World Championship twice. UW teams have qualified for World Finals in
each of the last 11 years.
"In practice, this year's
teams have performed as well as any," said Prof. Gordon Cormack, coach of
the two teams. "I'm confident that they'll both put in a strong
performance and cautiously optimistic that one will prevail. Nevertheless, we
expect tough competition. The general public expectation that Waterloo will
advance is tough to meet."
The student teams are challenged to
complete six or more "real-world" computer programming problems. The
problems are drawn from high school and college mathematics and computing, as
well as from everyday knowledge and problem solving.
The students rely on their
programming skills and creativity during the five-hour battle of logic,
strategy and mental endurance. Students attempt to solve complex problems using
available programming languages (C, C++ or Java compilers).
For more information on the East-Central
competition, including an on-line scoreboard, visit the regional Web site:
http://acm.ashland.edu
Information on other regions and the
World Finals can be found at the ACM ICPC Web site: http://icpc.baylor.edu
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Contact:
Prof. Gordon Cormack, School of Computer Science,
(519) 888-4567, ext. 4450; gvcormack@uwaterloo.ca
From John Morris, UW Media Relations, (519) 888-4435;
jmorris@uwaterloo.ca
Release no. 207 -- November 4, 2003