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Ohio, Pa., students compete at YSU in programming event
By Bob Jackson
YOUNGSTOWN
There were no peanuts, Cracker Jacks or seventh-inning stretches, but students at Youngstown State University spent Saturday going for a scientific grand slam and angling toward a world championship.
More than 160 students from 21 colleges in Ohio and Pennsylvania put their brains to the test in the annual International Collegiate Programming Competition. The local contest, in Meshel Hall, was one of four sites for the East-Central North America Region, according to Dr. Bonita Sharif and Robert A. Gilliland, who shared duties as local site directors.
Other regional competitions were at Grand Valley State University (Allendale, Mich.), the University of Cincinnati and the University of Windsor (Windsor, Canada). More than 200 teams competed in the entire region, while other competions also took place worldwide.
Students competed in teams of three, trying to solve problems presented to them at the beginning of the day. The top three teams from each region won the right to advance to the world finals in Morocco in May, Dr. Sharif said.
“Imagine that it’s like baseball, and you have teams competing in the playoffs to get to the World Series,” said Gilliland, an instructor of computer science and information systems at YSU. “Here, you have teams coming together to compete for the honor of going on to Morocco. This is going on worldwide right now.”
The top three regional winners also will get a job offer from IBM, which is the event sponsor, Gilliland said.
Sharif, assistant professor of computer science and information systems at YSU, said teams had five hours in which to solve nine problems. They had to analyze the problem, create a solution and then develop a working computer program to address it.
“They’re real-world problems,” Sharif said. “These students are putting to use the skills they’ve learned in the classrooms. They really need a strong background in algorithms and data structures in order to compete.”
An algorithm is a step-by-step procedure for calculations, most often used in data processing and automated reasoning.
YSU students Brian Powell of Berlin Center, Kyle Seaver of Greenford and Joseph Kochamba of Grove City, Pa., made up one of three teams representing YSU on Saturday. All three are senior computer-science majors.
“We made progress, but we never saw any results,” Powell said of the team’s efforts.
“But we had a good time,” said Kochamba. “It was fun.”
Even though they didn’t expect to be getting plane tickets to Morocco, Seaver said taking part in competitions such as this provides students with valuable experience.
“These things are timed, so you have to be able to think and work quickly,” he said. “And we usually do programming alone, so it’s good to learn how to work together as a team.”
Sharif said the competition will help prepare students for a potential career in software engineering, for which there is a strong job market.
“That’s why IBM is involved in this,” she said. “They’re always looking for good engineers.”