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October 30, 2009
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Brainiacs battle it out for computer accolades Susquehanna students are kicking their brains into high gear and competing in the 34th annual Battle of the Brains competition.This year, two Susquehanna teams will compete for the chance to go to the world finals of the Battle of the Brains competition. Battle of the Brains is a competition held each year to challenge teams to use their "programming skills and rely on their mental endurance to solve complex, real world problems under a grueling five-hour deadline," according to Amanda Carl of the ACM International Collegiate Programming Contest. The Association for Computing Machinery (AMC) hosts the event, which is sponsored by IBM. Throughout the fall, tens of thousands of university students compete in preliminary matches around the world, according to Carl. After the preliminary round, 100 teams from 90 countries on six continents will compete in the world finals, which will be held Feb. 1-5, 2010 at Harbin Engineering University in Harbin, China, Carl said. Junior Zachary Clauser competed on one of the Susquehanna teams last year. This year, Susquehanna is making a comeback with one second-time team and one new team made up of underclassman. Clauser said that his team, which consists of himself, senior Dave Huss and juniors Sean Hallinan and Nabin Mulepati, have been practicing throughout the semester to get ready for the competition. "We've practiced two on two occasions and plan to have a simulated competition this weekend," Clauser said. Hallinan said his team's name is Susquehanna 1. "Not very imaginative, I know," he said. Last year's world finals were held in Stockholm, Sweden. A team from the St. Petersburg University of Information Technology, Mechanics and Optics in Russia won the championship for the second year in a row, according to an AMC press release. To narrow down the contest, preliminary matches are broken down into regional categories. Susquehanna falls into the same category as schools such as Bucknell University, Lafayette College, Saint Joseph's University, Lycoming College and Villanova University. This year's preliminary contest will be held at Wilkes University on Nov. 7.Last year's preliminary contest was also held at Wilkes University on Oct. 25. Clauser said there were a few challenges that faced them, and this year they hope to overcome those. "Last year we programmed in C++ and none of us really had great knowledge about that particular language," Clauser said. "This year we will be using Java, which I know very, very well, to avoid some of those difficulties." "I expect that our team will have a fair showing, probably getting 2 to 4 problems and finishing in the top 25 percent," Hallinan said. The theme for this year's competition is aligned with IBM's initiative of creating a "Smarter Planet." Competing students are encouraged to "create smarter software to make the planet more efficient and intelligent," according to the AMC press release. According to Clauser, "Each problem is labeled with a color and whenever you solve a problem correctly you receive a balloon of that color." This helps to identify which teams are leading in the competition. "My favorite part is getting that first balloon," Hallinan said. The release also said that since IBM began sponsoring the event in 1997, the participation has grown from 1,000 teams to more than 7,100 teams. Clauser said he thinks the competition is a worthwhile experience because it "is a great way to gauge yourself and our college against other students and colleges in the Northeast." According to the AMC press release, AMC is the "world's largest educational and scientific computing society." Hallinan added: "Good performance in the competition shows a strong understanding of algorithms and the ability to come up with them quickly, which is a skill that is valued by employers. The contest gives us a chance to show off these strengths in a resume instead of an interview." The ICPC began in 1970 as a contest hosted by the Texas A&M chapter of the national computer science honor society Upsilon Pi Epsilon. The release went on to say that AMC "supports the professional growth of its members by providing opportunities for life-long learning, career development and professional networking." |
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