October 25th, 2006
For Immediate Release
For an interview:
Brian Durney
(801) 863-6390
UVSC Programmers to Compete in “Battle of the Brains”
Four teams of computer science students from Utah Valley State College will meet teams from colleges and universities in Utah and Montana to compete in the IBM-sponsored “Battle of the Brains” October 28 at the University of Utah. UVSC’s teams are four of more than 6,000 university teams from 84 countries and six continents competing for a chance to go to the World Finals in Tokyo next March, where the regional champions will meet and compete.
Each team, made up of three students, will be given challenges to test their programming and problem solving skills under a five-hour deadline. With one computer per team, competitors must build software systems that solve the problems, with judges watching every move. The problems are equal to one semester’s worth of computer programming. The team that solves the most problems correctly in the least amount of time will win a spot on the World Finals roster.
Brian Durney, UVSC’s teams’ advisor and associate professor of computing and networking science at UVSC, said the competition is a great resume builder and draws several well-known computer science companies.
“What the contest tests that employers would be most interested in is how well the students understand the problem,” Durney said. “They have to understand the problem so they can finish it quickly.”
UVSC teams will be competing against teams from Brigham Young University, Dixie State College, Montana Tech, Neumont University and Weber State University.
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College Marketing Contact:
Megan Laurie
(801) 863-7149
Written by:
Kim Chapman
(801) 863-7011
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