Three SU teams place in programming contest

Three Shippensburg University teams placed the regional competition of the International Collegiate Programming Contest held at Shippensburg earlier this month. Shippensburg's teams were 10th, 15th and 40th out of 160 teams competing.

Dr. Carol Wellington, professor of computer science and coach of the SU teams, was pleased with the outcome of the competition, in which teams of three students use programming skills and mental endurance to solve complex, real world problems under a five-hour deadline.

"The problem set was very, very hard," Wellington said. "We had about 160 teams (competing) and only about 40 solved anything at all. To have three teams that solved problems in a competition that was this hard is just stellar. I don't think we've had two teams in the top 20 before."

Competitors in the contest, nicknamed "the battle of the brains," included students from Shippensburg, Moravian, Gettysburg, Dickinson and Lebanon Valley colleges and Penn State Harrisburg.

According to Wellington, the regional competition went smoothly although judges had trouble with one of the problems. Shippensburg has hosted the regionals before. Wellington said Shippensburg students already have some ideas for preparing for their next competitions this spring, one at Dickinson College and the other a contest involving the 14 state universities at an as-yet undetermined location.

Shippensburg students competing in this year's regional contest were: 10th place team, Phil Diffenderfer, a junior from Columbia; Keith Porter, a senior from Holland, Pa., and Casey Boone, a senior from Hatfield; 15th place, Andrew Marx, a senior from Pottsville; Jessica Burns, a sophomore from Bloomsburg, and Danielle Leonard, a sophomore from Pasadena, Md.; and 40th place, Dane Howard, a senior from Washington, N.J.; Logan Kennedy, a senior from York, and Rob Koch, a senior from Biglerville. A fourth team of Emily Bruckart, a sophomore from Chambersburg; Stephen Jurnack, a senior from Towanda, and Garin Dangler, a freshman from Scotland, Pa., also competed.

The 34th annual Association for Computing Machinery competition was sponsored by IBM.