Carnegie Mellon Teams Place First and Second in ACM Regional

Byron SpiceWednesday, November 12, 2008

For the first time, Carnegie Mellon teams took the top two places in the ACM-ICPC East Central North America Regional Programming Contest in Cincinnati on Nov. 1.

The Tartans- computer science sophomores Tom Conerly and Alan Pierce and electrical and computer engineering senior Celestine Lau- completed seven of the eight problems in 1,287 minutes to take first place and move on to the World Finals April 22, 2009, in Stockholm, Sweden.

The Dragons- CS junior Daniel Schafer, CS sophomore Yun "Stanley" Yeo and ECE freshman Si Young Oh- took second place by completing six of the problems in 730 minutes, 64 minutes faster than third place University of Waterloo.

"It's not unusual for Carnegie Mellon to have two teams in the top 3," said Greg Kesden, associate teaching professor, who coaches the team along with Eugene Fink, systems scientist, and Danny Sleator, professor of computer science. "But to have two teams finish first and second- you can't get better than that."

Kesden said competition this year was particularly keen, with 123 teams representing 65 schools at the regional in Cincinnati and at three satellite sites. "When the World Finals are in an interesting place such as Stockholm, that draws a lot of students, that draws a lot of energy," he explained.

Both the Tartans and the Dragons played smart games. The victorious Tartans were the only team to finish seven problems. By tackling the easy problems first and rarely having to resubmit an answer, the Dragons were able to out-point the only other teams to solve six problems- Waterloo and Purdue.

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Byron Spice | 412-268-9068 | bspice@cs.cmu.edu