TU team scores big at regional International Collegiate Programming Competition - The University of Tulsa
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TU team scores big at regional International Collegiate Programming Competition

Five student teams, comprising three members each, represented the Tandy School of Computer Science at the ACM International Collegiate Programming Competition (ICPC) South Central Regional Contest held virtually on March 6:

  • Aleph Naught: James Hale, Bedlan Parker, Robert Geraghty
  • TU Gold: Jacob Brue, Julian Abhari, Zoe Delap
  • 3 guys 1 PC: Ben Reyes, David Fantin, Bryan Lavender
  • Refactored Broccoli: Andrew DeVoss, Jarow Myers, Michael Naguib
  • Turing Tested: Shadow Pritchard, Timmy Flavin, Sebastien Spirit

ICPC competitions bring together students in a high-pressure and highly competitive environment. Each team is given the same set of programming problems – usually ranging from 8 to 12 – to solve in five hours.

A Zoom screen with three young men
Aleph Naught

The South Central Region includes teams representing universities from Oklahoma, Louisiana, and Texas. The average ranking of TU’s teams was in the top five of all the region’s universities and one of TU’s teams – Aleph Naught – scored the highest ranking of all the Oklahoma teams in the competition. As a result, Hale, Parker and Geraghty will now advance to the next round: the North American Division Championships (NADC).

“After several months of preparation and a challenging regional competition, the notification of our advancing to the NADC was gratifying,” said Hale, who is double-majoring in computer science and mathematics. “This is my first time escaping the regionals. ICPC not only fosters a sense of camaraderie between computer science students, but it also incentivizes one to improve their programming skillset on the types of problems given during coding interviews. I would encourage anyone interested to participate. Lastly, I would also like to thank everyone involved with ICPC at TU, especially Professor Sen, for acting as a faculty advisor and coach.”

A Zoom screen with thirteen people“I know these young, motivated, and well-prepared students will face some stiff competition in the next round”, said their faculty advisor and coach Professor of Computer Science Sandip Sen. “But I have every confidence in their hard work, determination and ability. In fact, they’re the only team from Oklahoma to have qualified to go on to the next level.”

According to Sen, the ACM ICPC competition, held at multiple regional, divisional, national and international levels, is by far the most prestigious college-level competition in computer science. “Participation in these contests not only presents a wonderful opportunity for students to showcase their skills but also offers invaluable real-life experience of competing with their best peers across the region, the nation and the world.”


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