Archive for November, 2011

Messiah team is 3rd-place team of Midatlantic Region

Saturday, November 5th, 2011

On November 5, Messiah College sent two teams of programmers to Shippensburg University to compete in the Regional Contest. The contest is a five-hour event where teams are given a packet of eight algorithm problems and given a single computer to enter a computer program that can solve the problem. Teams are scored based on the number of problems solved and how quickly they are solved.

The Falcons Blue team, composed of Junior Computer Science students Anthony Spargo and Mike Adams, and First-Year-Student Zachary Felix, solved four problems, earning them FIRST place among the 23 teams competing at Shippensburg, and THIRD place among the 168 teams competing simultaneously throughout the multi-state Mid-Atlantic Region, surpassed only by Duke University and College of William and Mary.

Messiah competed in the Mid-Atlantic region with schools like Bucknell University, University of Virginia, Johns Hopkins University, Elizabethtown College, University of Maryland, Dickinson University and Temple University among others (See ACM International Collegiate Programming Contest Teams list [http://cm.baylor.edu/public/report/teamsWF.icpc]).

“It was an exciting contest to watch”, reports team coach Jason Long. “When Falcons Blue got their third problem correct half-way into the contest, I knew we had a chance of winning. I am proud of both our teams’ performances.”