A University of Wyoming team topped teams from the Air Force Academy, the University of Utah, Colorado State University, Brigham Young University and other regional schools during a recent computing competition.
Matt Enlow of Cheyenne and Jay Wuensch and Ryan Harrod of Gillette comprised the UW team during the regional Association for Computing Machinery International Collegiate Programming Contest in Boulder, Colo. Teams were challenged to use their programming skills to solve complex, real world problems under a five-hour deadline.
"Tackling these problems is equivalent to completing a semester's worth of computer programming in one afternoon," says Amanda Carl, assistant account executive for the contest.
"Nicknamed 'The Battle of the Brains,' this contest is the largest and most prestigious computing competition in the world," says Carl.
Sponsored by IBM, this year's regional competitions drew tens of thousands of students from universities in more than 90 countries; 100 regional champions will move onto the championship competition in Harbin, China, Feb. 1-6, 2010. A team from the University of Alberta, Canada, will represent the Rocky Mountain region.
The UW team placed 22nd among the 41 teams at the regional competition.