Four teams of programmers from the University of Waterloo swept the top spots at an Association for Computing Machinery regional International Collegiate Programming Competition over the weekend.
The teams — each comprised of three undergraduate students from the Faculty of Mathematics — secured first through fourth place, Waterloo’s best-ever result at the annual competition. The field included 130 other teams from the East Central North America region; universities from across Ontario, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Michigan entered teams in the competition that challenges students to solve ten programming problems within a five-hour time limit.
The first-place team — Waterloo Black — solved nine of the ten problems, and earned the right to compete against 127 of the top teams from universities around the world at the ICPC World Finals in Portugal. The team, comprised of Joakim Blikstad, Jason Yuen and Sean Purcell, will try to become the third Waterloo team to win first place at the World Finals, which have been held annually since 1977.
“The ICPC requires not only virtuoso programming skill, problem experience and speed — it also relies heavily on teamwork. Each of our teams impressed, not only in the number of the problems they solved, but also in finding the first solutions,” said Stephen M. Watt, Dean of the Faculty of Mathematics at Waterloo. “Our students faced stiff competition from across our region. We congratulate all four teams on their impressive performance, and look forward to watching the Waterloo Black team compete at the world finals in Porto, Portugal this spring.”
“For many years, Waterloo teams have performed remarkably well at the ACM programming competitions, but this year’s results are particularly astonishing,” said Dan Brown, Director of the David R. Cheriton School of Computer Science. “I’m proud of all our students’ accomplishments and grateful to our colleagues Ondřej Lhoták and Troy Vasiga, who have been coaching the teams to so many successful outcomes. Good luck in Portugal!”
Sponsored by Wish, Waterloo’s teams were selected in preliminary competitions open to students from all faculties earlier in the fall.
2018 East Central North America Regional Contest • Top team members
First
place,
solving
nine
problems
Waterloo
Black:
Joakim
Blikstad
(3A
CS/CO),
Jason
Yuen
(2A
CS),
Sean
Purcell
(3B
Soft
Eng)
L to R: Competition organizer Professor Ziad Kobti, Professor Troy Vasiga, Jason Yuen, Sean Purcell, Joakim Blikstad, Professor Ondřej Lhoták
Second
place,
solving
nine
problems
Waterloo
Red:
Reyno
Tilikayen
(4B
CS/CO),
Timothy
Li
(3A
CS),
Anzo
Teh
(3B
CS)
L to R: Competition organizer Professor Ziad Kobti, Professor Troy Vasiga, Anzo Teh, Timothy Li, Reyno Tilikayen, Professor Ondřej Lhoták
Third
place
solving
eight
problems
Waterloo
Gold:
Joey
Yu
(1A
CS),
Albert
Gevorgyan
(3A
Pure
Math
with
CO/Stats
minor),
Josh
Jung
(3A
Math
Phys)
L to R: Competition organizer Professor Ziad Kobti, Professor Troy Vasiga, Joey Yu, Josh Jung, Albert Gevorgyan, Professor Ondřej Lhoták
Fourth
place,
solving
eight
problems
Waterloo
White:
Peter
Ralbovsky
(2A
CS),
Kai
Sun
(1A
CS),
Felix
Bauckholt
(4B
Pure
Math)
L to R: Competition organizer Professor Ziad Kobti, Professor Troy Vasiga, Peter Ralbovsky, Kai Sun, Professor Ondřej Lhoták (Felix Bauckholt was unavailable for the photo)
2018 East Central North America Regional Contest • Top 10 teams
Table from ecna18.kattis.com/standings