Coding competition

Student organization holds programming contest

March 27, 2006 —

by Brandon Kish

Computer Science senior Joe Joslin looks over a program submitted during the ACM programming contest on Friday. Joslin was one of several SVSU ACM members that judged the coding skills of area high school students.

by Brandon Kish

Computer Information Systems junior Chris Cragg (red shirt) answers a question from one of Midland High School's programming teams. The team of Michael Vo (left), Sherwood Wang, and Dan Holycross won Friday's competition.

by Brandon Kish

SVSU alum Julie Haske, left, and senior Angela Tucker work during ACM's high school programming competition on Friday. Haske and Tucker, computer science majors, helped judge the event.

High school students from across the state of Michigan gathered at SVSU to compete in an Association for Computer Machinery computer-programming contest on Friday.

The nearly 75 participants arrived by 9 a.m. for registration. They came in teams of two and three people and were supervised by their high school faculty advisors.

"We've done this competition twice before, and we want to win this time," said Team SuperAwesome of Brighton High School. "We also like the free food and t-shirts."

Although students received a complimentary lunch and t-shirt, they also got the chance to make use of their computer knowledge.

"This competition is a good experience for students because it allows them to apply the skills they have learned in the classroom to the real world," said Michelle Costa, Team SuperAwesome's faculty advisor.

When the ACM competition began, the teams were asked to find solutions using the programming languages of Java, Visual Basic, or C++. Each team received a packet of challenges, which they were given two hours and one computer to complete.

ACM is an international association for those interested in education and scientific computing. It works with different university chapters around the world to promote the education of computer and information specialists.

"We started working with ACM in 1986," said Dr. Moe Bidgoli, SVSU's associate professor of computer science. "Debugging was our very first contest. It was so successful that we have explored different options and improved the contests each year with better resources."

The College of Science, Engineering and Technology contributed funds and the temporary use of its computer facilities so the event could be possible.

"We are basically uplifting and challenging members of the community through this event," Bidgoli said. "We are promoting excellence."

Bidgoli also mentioned that his department is hoping to someday offer all future annual ACM competition winners a full scholarship to SVSU. Winning teams currently receive an honorary plaque.

"We are pursuing the idea so that highly motivated and talented people can be rewarded with an education," he said.

SVSU's Department of Computer Science offers majors in the fields of computer science and computer information systems.

"This event allows the community to know about our program and university," Bidgoli said.

After all submitted programs were judged and reviewed by ACM volunteers, teams from different high schools were honored. In this year's competition, a Midland High School team received first place, a Brighton High School team was awarded second place, and a team from Comstock High School finished third.