A group of University of Wyoming students will compete this weekend at a regional qualifying event in Fort Collins, Colo., for the largest and most prestigious computing contest in the world.
Don Brockus (Cody), Dustin Brown (Jackson), Zebulon Fross (Lysite) Mason Hall (Casper), Ryan Harrod (Gillette), Joshua Herr (Cheyenne), Sean Ludtke (Cheyenne), David Peek (Cheyenne), Chris Prosser (Thermopolis), Brett Riotto (Wilson), Jay Wuensch (Gillette) and Frank Zebre (Kemmerer) will represent UW at the Oct. 30 qualifier for the 35th annual Association for Computing Machinery International Collegiate Programming Contest, nicknamed "The Battle of the Brains."
The contest challenges teams to use their programming skills and rely on their mental endurance to solve complex, real-world problems under a five-hour deadline. UW will compete against teams from the Colorado School of Mines, Colorado State University, Mesa State University, Montana State University and the U.S. Air Force Academy.
"The Battle of the Brains is the Olympics of the computer programming world," says Michael Karasick, vice president of strategy and technology at IBM Software Group. "These students push their minds to the limit, manipulating technologies such as analytics, system optimization and collaboration to effectively solve a semester's worth of computer programming in just five hours. The amount of talent that we have the opportunity to witness each year is truly impressive and a testament to the value of this competition."
The regional competitions, sponsored by IBM, are expected to draw tens of thousands of students from universities in about 90 countries on six continents. The top 100 teams will advance to the world finals, Feb. 27, March 4, 2011, in Egypt.
