UNews - Chris Martin

Programming team wins regional, again qualifies for world finals

trevor.kenney — Mon, 28 Oct 2013 20:07:10 +0000

A team of ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Lethbridge computer science and mathematics students has won the 2013 Rocky Mountain Regional Programming Contest, earning the right to compete at an international competition in Ekaterinburg, Russia in June, 2014.

Dr. Howard Cheng looks over the shoulders of his winning team, including (L to R) Darcy Best, Chris Martin and Farshad Barahimi.

The ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Lethbridge team of Farshad Barahimi (1st year, MSc Computer Science), Darcy Best (2nd year, MSc Mathematics) and Chris Martin (4th year, BSc Computer Science) bested 39 other teams representing schools from Arizona, Utah, Colorado, Wyoming, Nevada, New Mexico, Idaho, Montana, Alberta and Saskatchewan at the regional portion of the ACM International Collegiate Programming Contest (ICPC) contest. It is the first time a U of L team has won the regional competition.

Three other U of L teams participated at the event, which was held Friday and Saturday at the ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Alberta, and all finished in the top half of the competition.

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 – except, of course, for the world’s brightest problem-solvers.

This is the second year in a row that the U of L will be sending a team to the world finals. Associate professor of mathematics and computer science, Dr. Howard Cheng, and coach of the U of L programming teams, led a team to a second-place finish at last year’s regional competition (which included Best and Martin).

While the results speak to the talent of the U of L teams, Cheng says the students deserve credit for their hard work.

“They have all worked very hard for this,” says Cheng. “Our top team has been practicing close to 10 hours a week for the past few weeks, but even some of the other teams put in close to 7 hours a week, on top of all the assignments and midterms they have to worry about.”

This past year 29,479 contestants from 2,322 universities in 91 countries competed in regional competitions at over 300 sites worldwide. Only 120 teams from regional contests servicing universities worldwide will advance to the World Finals.

“The commitment of Dr. Cheng and the experience these students receive from an academic and international perspective is a reflection of the type of institution we have become,” says Provost and Vice-President (Academic) Dr. Andy Hakin. “We are very proud of the accomplishments and results our students achieve and, through the efforts of our faculty and staff, proud that we are able to offer these types of experiences to our students.”

The entire roster of U of L competitors includes Barahimi, Best, Martin, Brandon Fuller, Camara Lerner, Vince Weiler, Lindsay Ablonczy, Matt Basaraba, Kai Fender, Kyle Link, Chris Thomas and Justin Werre.

Programming a bright future

trevor.kenney — Tue, 22 Oct 2013 21:45:36 +0000

It’s not every day that you avoid being eaten by digital zombies. But a team of ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Lethbridge students has proven it’s just the way to earn a second-place finish at an international programming competition.

The university’s programming contest team participated for the first time in the prestigious annual world finals of the Association for Computing Machinery’s International Collegiate Programming Contest (ICPC). Sponsored by IBM, the competition was held in St. Petersburg, Russia last summer.

Hugh Ramp (left), Chris Martin (back left), Dr. Howard Cheng (front) and Darcy Best (right) put the U of L on the map at the prestigious ICPC World Finals.

The team, made up of Hugh Ramp (fourth-year physics), Chris Martin (fourth-year computer science), Darcy Best (second-year MSc mathematics) and coaches Dr. Howard Cheng (mathematics and computer science) and Dr. Kevin Grant (mathematics and computer science) took second prize in an open challenge competition that required the students to write an artificial intelligence program that would successfully play a zombie-filled video game on the team’s behalf.

The challenge was part of a larger competition in which nearly 30,000 students from around the world participated in regional contests, solving several complex computing problems within a gruelling, five-hour deadline.

In this battle of logic, strategy and mental endurance, each team had to huddle around a single computer while addressing various problems. For example, the students had to quantify the impact of water pollution and determine how to get commuters to their destinations as quickly as possible without traffic congestion. In the end, among the 120 teams that advanced to the world finals, the
U of L students placed third among the Canadian competitors, 12th out of 23 North American teams and 80th overall.

The competition, says Cheng, equips students for the real-world demands of computing.

“You must work together under intense time constraints. There’s no room for any failure,” he says.

What’s more, says Martin, preparing for the competition is often just as challenging as the contest.
U of L students spent 15 to 20 hours a week – on top of their regular studies – practising sample computing problems.

“The more time you put in, the better you will do,” he says.

It’s a sentiment echoed by Best.

“You have to learn to use new algorithms that aren’t taught in your courses. As a result, my coding skills have gone through the roof.”

Those abilities, he says, have given him an advantage over his classmates, who often must invest considerable time becoming proficient at writing computer programs.

Best, however, isn’t the only one whose ICPC experience has complemented his education. Teammate Ramp (BSc ’13), for instance, has gone on to pursue graduate studies at the ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Alberta, providing further evidence that hands-on learning serves as a springboard to future success.

Programming team excels in Russia

trevor.kenney — Wed, 03 Jul 2013 20:20:14 +0000

The ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Lethbridge's Inter-Collegiate Programming Contest team will return from the prestigious Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) International Collegiate Programming Contest (ICPC) World Finals in St. Petersburg, Russia with several notable achievements after their first-ever international competition.

The team, made up of Hugh Ramp (fourth-year physics); Chris Martin (third-year computer science); Darcy Best (second-year MSc mathematics); and coaches Dr. Howard Cheng (mathematics and computer science) and Dr. Kevin Grant (mathematics and computer science) took fourth place in an open challenge competition where they had to code their way out of a video game problem – and avoid being eaten by digital zombies in the process.

Their win was chronicled on the ITBusiness News website and the ITWorld Canada website:

http://www.itbusiness.ca/news/alberta-students-scoop-fourth-place-in-international-ai-programming-challenge/37384

http://www.itworldcanada.com/news/alberta-students-4th-in-ai-programming-contest/147325

In a similar online challenge at the end of June, first-time contestant Camara Lerner claimed a second place finish among 14 teams, while teammate Kai Fender made it through three rounds of problem-solving challenges. http://www.uleth.ca/notice/display.html?b=300&s=19610

As well, the team placed third among the Canadian competitors, 12th out of 23 North American teams and 80th of all 120 teams entered in the contest, which was hosted by St. Petersburg National Research ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Information Technologies, Mechanics and Optics (ITMO).

Complete results are available here: http://static.kattis.com/icpc/wf2013/

The team will return to Lethbridge July 6.

Computer programming group off to Russia

trevor.kenney — Tue, 04 Dec 2012 22:14:52 +0000

The recent winners of a spot in a prestigious international computer science and mathematics challenge competition are going to have to brush up on their Russian – and quickly.

A team of ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Lethbridge computer science and physics students, coached by Dr. Howard Cheng, placed second of 49 teams from western Canada and the northwestern United States at the ACM International Collegiate Programming Contest (ICPC) Rocky Mountain competition at the end of October.

The team's success landed three members (Hugh Ramp, Chris Martin and Darcy Best) of the U of L group on the elite roster of competitors at the ICPC World Finals to be held in St. Petersburg, Russia, June 30 to July 4, 2013. It is the first time the U of L has qualified students for the world finals.

Front row (l to r) Hugh Ramp, fourth-year physics, Dr. Howard Cheng, team coach; Back row (l to r) Chris Martin, third-year computer science, Darcy Best, second-year mathematics.

"The team also won a warm-up event two weeks before the regional contest (the Alberta Collegiate Programming Contest) where we took the top spot in the province, and the students have put in a tremendous amount of training into this effort," says Cheng.

The events leading up to, and including, the St. Petersburg events are a gruelling series of problem-solving boot camps, competitions and drills designed to enhance the students' ability to work as a team under relentless pressure, the watchful eyes of the world's best judges and extremely strict working conditions.

"They trained for hours on weekends as well as a few evenings just before the regional contest. This is in addition to the years of practices they have had, including taking a course (CPSC 3200) that teaches many of the topics they had to know for this contest. Top IT employers such as IBM and Google value these contests and commonly test applicants with programming contest puzzles during interviews, so there is definitely a career-related aspect to knowing how these types of puzzles work."

St. Petersburg National Research ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Information Technologies, Mechanics and Optics (ITMO) hosts the ICPC World Finals. Only 115 of the top teams in the world make it to the final competition.

"This is an outstanding achievement for our students and their coaching and mentoring group," says Dr. Chris Nicol, Dean of the Faculty of Arts & Science. "Howard has done an excellent job of building up the team's strength and developing its real-world experience in mathematics and computer science through these competitions. They have been consistently successful at regional competitions, and that success is now paying off. We wish them well in their future efforts at the world finals in Russia this summer."

At the ACM Rocky Mountain Regional Contest at the ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Alberta in October, U of L teams placed second, 12th, 28th, and 34th of 49 groups.

The full U of L contingent features: Darcy Best, Chris Martin, Hugh Ramp, Rio Lowry, Chris Thomas, Kim Wikkerink, Mark Hunter, Ian Stewart, Fei Wang, Camara Lerner, Jason Racine and Vince Weiler.

This story first appeared in the December 2012 issue of the Legend. For a look at the entire issue in a flipbook format, follow this link.

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