Waterloo Gold advances to North America Championships
Four University of Waterloo teams of algorithmic programmers, each with a triad of coders, ranked within the top 14 at the 2024 ICPC East Central North America contest, held on November 10 at the University of Windsor. Competing against teams from universities across east central North America, Waterloo’s teams placed third, seventh, 10th and 14th.
Waterloo Gold, represented by Maxwell He (1A CS), Kevin Guo (4A CS) and Kevin Yang (3A CS) finished in third place, successfully solving 12 out of 13 problems, securing the team’s spot at the 2025 North America Championship.
Waterloo Black, comprised of Chris Trevisan (4A CS/CO/Pure Math), Arayi Khalatyan (2B CS) and Max Jiang (3B CS/CO) finished seventh, solving 11 out of 13 problems. Waterloo Red, consisting of Dat Vu (4B CS), Bob Xiong (2A CS) and Wangshu (Daniel) Jiang (4A CS) finished 10th, also solving 11 out of 13 problems. Waterloo White, consisting of Daniel Ye (1A CS), Paul Chen (1A SE) and Boshi Wang (2A CS) finished 14th, solving 10 out of 13 problems.
2024 ICPC East Central North America contest • Top 14 teams
A dark green check mark indicates the team was first to solve a problem, a light green check mark indicates a correct solution, and a red x indicates an attempted but unsolved problem. An incorrect submission results in a 20-minute penalty being added to the total time to solve a problem. Waterloo’s four teams are highlighted in yellow.
L to R: Professor Troy Vasiga, Maxwell He, Kevin Guo, Kevin Yang, Professor Ondřej Lhoták
The four teams were mentored by Cheriton School of Computer Science Professors Troy Vasiga and Ondřej Lhoták.
“We’re proud of all teams for their strong showing,” said Professor Vasiga. “The top three teams from the East Central North America competition qualify for the North American Championship. With their third-place win, we’re looking forward to Maxwell, Kevin and Kevin taking on the competition in the continent-wide round, which takes place in 2025.”
“During the contest, each team has five hours to solve 13 problems on a single computer,” Professor Lhoták explains. “Each incorrect submission incurs a 20-minute penalty, and correct solutions are timed from the start of the contest, making the competition both a sprint and a marathon.”
About the ICPC
The International Collegiate Programming Contest is the oldest, largest and most prestigious university-level algorithmic programming contest in the world. Each year, some 50,000 students from more than 3,000 universities across 111 countries compete in regional contest to qualify for the ICPC World Finals.
Coaches prepare their teams with intense training and instruction in algorithms, programming and teamwork strategy. Huddled around a computer, teams of three compete against each other to solve a dozen or so complex, real-world problems within a five-hour deadline. Teammates collaborate to rank the difficulty of the problems, deduce the requirements, design test beds and build software systems that solve the problems.
Across the various ICPC competitions, teams of three students represent their university in multiple levels of regional competition. Success at one level leads to an invitation to the next. Each region progresses differently, but the end result is the same — the best teams advance. The final regional contest determines the teams that advance to the ICPC World Finals.
Waterloo’s legacy at the ICPC
The University of Waterloo is the only Canadian institution to have won the ICPC World Finals, taking the prized title twice, once in 1994 and again in 1999.
For an insider’s perspective on the ICPC competitions, please see A passion for programming: An interview with Professor Lhoták, who was an undergrad student on the Waterloo team that won the 1999 ICPC World Finals.