College of Liberal Arts & Sciences

Iowa State University
INDEX
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

College of Liberal Arts & Sciences

College of Liberal Arts and Sciences
LAS Calendar | E-Mail/Phones |
  • November 8, 2007

    Iowa State computer science programming team wins competition

  • What a difference a year makes for a trio of Iowa State University computer science majors.

    A team of What a difference a year makes for a trio of Iowa State University computer science majors.

    A team of Pavel Kazatsker, Michael Seibert and Kirk Sykora competed and defeated 40 other collegiate computer programming teams at the 32nd ACM International Collegiate Programming Contest (ICPC) at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln on Saturday, Nov. 3.

    The Iowa State contingent answered seven of the nine programming questions posed to them to finish first at this site location. The team finished third overall in the North Central North America Region that had more than 200 teams competing at different locations.

    This isn"t the first time the Iowa State trio has competed in this regional competition. Last year Kazatsker and Seibert were on a team that netted only two correct answers, while Sykora"s team failed to answer a single question correctly.

    So what was the difference this year?

    "I would say that the problems were a little easier this year," Seibert said, "but I also think we worked well together as a team. It also helped to have that experience from last year and know what type of problems to expect."

    The competition challenges students to solve real-world computer programming problems under a five-hour deadline. Each team has a single computer as the teammates collaborate to rank the difficultly of the problems, deduce the requirements, design test beds and build software systems that solve the problems under the intense scrutiny of expert judges.

    At Saturday"s competition, the Iowa State team and a team from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln traded the top position throughout. Iowa State finally broke through in the contest"s final minute with a correct solution.

    The Iowa State trio hopes their performance will propel them to the world finals in Canada in April 2008. The participants will be announced in December.

    Kazatsker is a junior computer science/computer engineering major from Johnston, while Seibert is a junior computer science major also from Johnston. A Cedar Rapids native, Sykora is a senior computer science/computer engineering major at Iowa State.

Computing students

Kirk Sykora, Pavel Kazatsker and Michael Seibert.
Air Force Aerospace Studies - Anthropology - Biochemistry, Biophysics & Molecular Biology - Chemistry - Computer Science
Ecology, Evolution & Organismal Biology - Economics - English - Genetics, Development & Cell Biology - Geological & Atmospheric Sciences
Greenlee School of Journalism and Communication - History - Mathematics - Military Science - Music - Naval Science
Philosophy & Religious Studies - Physics and Astronomy - Political Science - Psychology - Sociology - Statistics - World Languages & Cultures
African and African American Studies - American Indian Studies - Biological/Premedical Illustration - Bioinformatics and Computational Biology
Classical Studies - Communication Studies - Criminal Justice Studies - Environmental Science - Environmental Studies - Interdisciplinary Studies
International Studies - Liberal Studies - Linguistics - Software Engineering - Speech Communication - U.S. Latino/a Studies - Women's Studies