CS students head to Warsaw to compete in programming competitions

Computer Science Department students Momchil Tomov, Wesley Cao, Eddy Ferreira, and Jarett Schwartz (Coach) are headed to Warsaw, Poland, to compete in one of the most intellectually challenging computing programming competitions in the world: the 36th Annual World Finals of the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) International Collegiate Programming Contest (ICPC), sponsored by IBM.

These students have spent countless hours honing their programming skills and strengthening their mental endurance in pursuit of a coveted spot at the World Finals. During the regional portion of the competition, more than 25,016 students, representing 2,219 universities from around the world, pushed their minds to the limit to master the problem sets before them. Princeton is one of only 18 elite universities from the United States and 112 teams of three students internationally who will make the trip to Warsaw, Poland, May 14-18, 2012. The contest will be hosted at the University of Warsaw.

The next generation of programming superstars from all over the globe will be challenged to solve a series of complex, real-world problems – a full semester’s worth of academic curriculum – in a mere five hours. Problems range from mapping the optimal placement of a channel for farmland irrigation to helping commuters get to work faster through mass transit systems. Past contest problems are available on the ICPC website. The team solving the most problems correctly in the least amount of time will emerge as champions, earning scholarships, bragging rights and prizes from IBM.