Congrats to the Black Hornets (Jiakan Wang ’13, Renjie Song ’13, Tibin John ’15) and the Orange Hornets (Chris Clerville ’13, Will Reichle 14’, Kyle Sunden ’14) on their success at the regional Association for Computing Machinery International Collegiate Programming Contest, or “Battle of the Brains,” this past Saturday. Both Kalamazoo College teams finished in the top half of the teams in their region.

The  Black Hornets solved two out of nine problems, finished in 39th place in the region (out of 131 teams), and earned the Extreme Programmers award for solving problem B in 25 minutes! The Orange Hornets solved one out of nine problems and finished 53rd in the region.

“Our region is one of the most competitive in the country, including multiple teams from such schools as Carnegie Mellon, University of Toronto, University of Waterloo, University of Michigan, and Notre Dame,” said Associate Professor of Computer Science Pam Cutter, Ph.D. “I’m proud of both teams for solving at least one problem. There were 54 teams in our region that did not solve any of the problems!”

According to Cutter, the “Battle of the Brains” consists of a five-hour, real-world, problem-solving challenge that is equivalent to an entire semester’s worth of computer programming. Teams of three from colleges and universities in 90 countries and six continents use skills based upon open technology and advanced computing methods to compete for a coveted spot on the World Finals held in summer 2013 in Saint Petersburg, Russia.

Full standings and results from the recent regional, and problem sets with judges solutions can be found at http://acm.ashland.edu.

Black and Orange! Orange and Black!