UNews - Soraj Seyed Mahmoud /unews/person/soraj-seyed-mahmoud en U of L programmers lead Canadian schools at Rocky Mountain Regional /unews/article/u-l-programmers-lead-canadian-schools-rocky-mountain-regional <div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"> <div class="field-items"> <div class="field-item even" property="rnews:articlebody schema:articleBody"> <p>免费福利资源在线看片 of Lethbridge student programmers earned the highest finish of all Canadian universities, placing fourth overall, at the 2015 ACM Rocky Mountain Regional Programming Contest hosted by the 免费福利资源在线看片 of Alberta recently.</p><p>U of L Team 1, consisting of Kai Fender, Brandon Fuller and Lukas Grasse, solved seven of 11 total problems with 999 penalty minutes to earn the top spot among Canadian schools. 免费福利资源在线看片 of Calgary 3 was second amongst Canadian entries and fifth overall, while the 免费福利资源在线看片 of Alberta and 免费福利资源在线看片 of Saskatchewan had teams that ranked eighth and ninth overall in the competition.</p><p>Students are given a series of complex, real-world problems that they must solve over a five-hour time period. Competitors race against the clock, and each other, in a battle of strategy, logic and mental endurance. Teammates collaborate to rank the difficulty of the problems, deduce the requirements, design test beds, and write programs that solve the problems under the intense scrutiny of expert judges.</p><p>&ldquo;Basically, their solutions have to be in the form of computer programs that will run and produce the correct answers,&rdquo; says <a href="http://www.cs.uleth.ca/~cheng/" rel="nofollow">Dr. Howard Cheng</a>, associate professor of mathematics and computer science and the group&rsquo;s coach. &ldquo;For example, one of the easier problems they solved was to write a computer program that will read a recipe for a certain number of portions, and scale all the ingredients to some desired number of portions.&nbsp;A harder problem was to write a program that will read a map of a scavenger hunt and the values of each item in the hunt, then find a way to achieve the maximum value and still finish the hunt in time.&rdquo;</p><p>Cheng says a wide cross-section of students take part in the contest, and all reap the rewards of the experience.</p><p>&ldquo;I have students who are not in math and computer science at all.&nbsp;Some have just taken some programming classes and enjoyed it, and decided to try out for this,&rdquo; he says. &ldquo;The skills they get are general problem solving skills, as well as the ability to quickly turn a conceptual solution into a computer program that works correctly and efficiently.&nbsp;These skills are commonly sought after by high-tech companies, so they are increasingly using these types of problems/puzzles in their job interviews.&rdquo;</p><p>A total of 52 teams were entered in the competition from throughout Western Canada and the western United States, with 免费福利资源在线看片 of Utah, Colorado School of Mines and 免费福利资源在线看片 of Arizona finishing first through third respectively. Both Utah and Colorado solved eight problems, while Arizona solved seven but had less penalty minutes, 823, than the U of L&rsquo;s top team.</p><p>In all, the U of L entered four teams with all four finishing in the upper half of the competition.</p><p>免费福利资源在线看片 of Lethbridge 2, with team members Lindsay Ablonczy, Matt Basaraba and Stephanie McIntyre, placed 14th overall (five solved, 555 penalty minutes), while U of L 3, with Brad Melchin, Julius Moore and Soraj Seyed Mahmoud, placed 20th (four solved, 205 penalty) and U of L 4, consisting of Lyle Snelgrove, Marko Ilievski and Justin Werre, was 21st overall (four solved, 341 penalty).</p><p>To view full results, visit the <a href="https://webdocs.cs.ualberta.ca/~contest/RMRC2015/standings.html" rel="nofollow">competition website</a>.</p> </div> </div> </div> <div class="field-group-format group_related_topics field-group-div group-related-topics block-title-body speed-fast effect-none"><h2><span>Related Topics</span></h2><div class="field field-name-opencalais-organization-tags field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Organization:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="/unews/organization/department-mathematics-computer-science" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel">Department of Mathematics &amp; Computer Science</a></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-opencalais-person-tags field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Person:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="/unews/person/howard-cheng" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel">Howard Cheng</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/unews/person/kai-fender" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel">Kai Fender</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/unews/person/brandon-fuller" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel">Brandon Fuller</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/unews/person/lukas-grasse" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel">Lukas Grasse</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/unews/person/lindsay-ablonczy" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel">Lindsay Ablonczy</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/unews/person/matt-basaraba" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel">Matt Basaraba</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/unews/person/stephanie-mcintyre" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel">Stephanie McIntyre</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/unews/person/brad-melchin" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel">Brad Melchin</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/unews/person/julius-moore" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel">Julius Moore</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/unews/person/soraj-seyed-mahmoud" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel">Soraj Seyed Mahmoud</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/unews/person/lyle-snelgrove" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel">Lyle Snelgrove</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/unews/person/marko-ilievski" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel">Marko Ilievski</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/unews/person/justin-werre" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel">Justin Werre</a></div></div></div></div><span property="rnews:name schema:name" content="U of L programmers lead Canadian schools at Rocky Mountain Regional" class="rdf-meta"></span> Wed, 18 Nov 2015 22:28:06 +0000 trevor.kenney 7648 at /unews Programmers earn third-place finish at regional contest /unews/article/programmers-earn-third-place-finish-regional-contest <div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"> <div class="field-items"> <div class="field-item even" property="rnews:articlebody schema:articleBody"> <p>A third-place finish led the way for a quartet of 免费福利资源在线看片 of Lethbridge student teams that participated in the Rocky Mountain Regional Contest of the 2014 ACM International Collegiate Programming Contest recently.</p><p>The U of L sent four teams to the 53-team competition, with the group of Kai Fender, Brandon Fuller and Camara Lerner grabbing third place overall. The 免费福利资源在线看片 of Calgary and the 免费福利资源在线看片 of Alberta finished first and second respectively. Other teams represented Arizona, Utah, Colorado, Wyoming, Eastern Nevada, Idaho, Montana, Saskatchewan and New Mexico.</p><p>&ldquo;The students have done a tremendous amount of preparation for this competition,&rdquo; says 免费福利资源在线看片 of Lethbridge associate professor of mathematics and computer science Dr. Howard Cheng, the team coach. &ldquo;To get ready for this, some of the students were putting in eight hours per week under actual contest conditions.&rdquo;</p><p>Students are given a series of complex, real-world problems that they must solve over a five-hour time period. Competitors race against the clock, and each other, in a battle of strategy, logic and mental endurance. Teammates collaborate to rank the difficulty of the problems, deduce the requirements, design test beds and write programs that solve the problems under the intense scrutiny of expert judges. For a well-versed computer science student, some of the problems require precision only. Others require a knowledge and understanding of advanced algorithms. Still others are simply too hard to solve &ndash; except, of course, for the world&rsquo;s brightest problem-solvers.</p><p>The past two years saw a U of L team qualify for the world finals, and while this group fell just shy of making it to the international stage, Cheng is excited about their prospects moving forward.</p><p>&ldquo;We had some of our senior students move on after last year, so we&rsquo;re in a bit of a rebuilding phase,&rdquo; says Cheng. &ldquo;What was really exciting was that through this contest, we attracted interest from a number of high profile companies looking to recruit students. These events are excellent career-building opportunities for our students.&rdquo;</p><p>The u of L&rsquo;s other teams included the group of Lindsay Ablonczy, Chris Thomas and Justin Were (15th place); Matt Basaraba, Lukas Grasse and Marko Ilievski (19th place); and Brandon Robertson, Soraj Seyed Mahmoud and Zackery Shortt (36th place).</p> </div> </div> </div> <div class="field-group-format group_related_topics field-group-div group-related-topics block-title-body speed-fast effect-none"><h2><span>Related Topics</span></h2><div class="field field-name-opencalais-industryterm-tags field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-above"><div class="field-label">IndustryTerm:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="/unews/industry-term/programming" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel">Programming</a></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-opencalais-person-tags field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Person:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="/unews/person/howard-cheng" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel">Howard Cheng</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/unews/person/matt-basaraba" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel">Matt Basaraba</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/unews/person/brandon-robertson" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel">Brandon Robertson</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/unews/person/zackery-shortt" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel">Zackery Shortt</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/unews/person/lukas-grasse" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel">Lukas Grasse</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/unews/person/justin-were" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel">Justin Were</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/unews/person/soraj-seyed-mahmoud" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel">Soraj Seyed Mahmoud</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/unews/person/marko-ilievski" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel">Marko Ilievski</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/unews/person/kai-fender" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel">Kai Fender</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/unews/person/brandon-fuller" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel">Brandon Fuller</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/unews/person/lindsay-ablonczy" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel">Lindsay Ablonczy</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/unews/person/chris-thomas" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel">Chris Thomas</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/unews/person/camara-lerner" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel">Camara Lerner</a></div></div></div></div><span property="rnews:name schema:name" content="Programmers earn third-place finish at regional contest" class="rdf-meta"></span> Fri, 05 Dec 2014 23:29:12 +0000 trevor.kenney 6785 at /unews