TTU team places second in local ‘Battle of the Brains’ computing contest
A team of Tennessee Tech University computer science students placed second in a local round of the 34th annual Association for Computing Machinery International Collegiate Programming Contest held here Oct. 24.
TTU served as host for the event, which brought together nearly 70 computer science students from 11 of the area’s colleges and universities. Dubbed the “Battle of the Brains,” the contest challenges three-person teams to solve real-world computer programming problems.
One of TTU’s teams consisting of Adam Chesney, Tim Myers and Alan Plaxco placed second in the local competition. A team from Vanderbilt University scored first. The teams placed 24th and 26th, respectively, out of approximately 140 teams in the Mid-Central region.
“Our team was in first place for about a half hour towards the end. With four minutes left, Vanderbilt solved their fifth problem and got ahead of our team,” said Martha Kosa, associate professor of computer science at TTU and team coach.
TTU hosted competitors from Austin Peay State University, Belmont University, East Tennessee State University, Maryville College, Middle Tennessee State University, Tuskeegee University, University of North Alabama, University of Tennessee-Knoxville, Sewanee: The University of the South and Vanderbilt University. Eric Brown and Valerie Nash of the TTU Computer Science Department provided valuable support for the event.
The worldwide competition involves students from 90 countries and culminates with the World Finals to be held Feb. 1-6, 2010, in Harbin, China.
Click here to see the local contest results.
