Team of Stevens undergrads makes high marks at ACM Regional Collegiate Programming Contest

A team of computer science undergrads from Stevens Institute of Technology came out ahead of teams from Yale, Cornell, Columbia, and Swarthmore, finishing third out of 52 teams at the prestigious Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) Regional Collegiate Programming Contest. IBM and Barclay's Capital Management sponsored the competition, held at Columbia University, Nov. 3.

The Regional Contests are held September to December. This year, participation in preliminary and regional contests increased from 2,770 teams to 3,082 teams from 67 countries on six continents. Though the number of regional sites increased from 90 to 94, an additional 200 teams were turned away due to lack of space.

The team from Stevens - Paul DeMarco, Rob Evans, and Sabira Gupta - was pitted against nine complex, real-world problems, with a grueling five-hour deadline. Huddled around a single computer, the team raced against the clock in a battle of logic, strategy and mental endurance.

Teammates collaborate to rank the difficulty of the problems, deduce the requirements, design test beds, and build software systems that solve the problems under the intense scrutiny of expert judges. For a well-versed computer science student, some of the problems require precision only. Others require a knowledge and understanding of advanced algorithms. Still others are simply too hard to solve - except, of course, for the world's brightest problem-solvers.

Judging is relentlessly strict. The students are given a problem statement - not a requirements document. They are given an example of test data, but they do not have access to the judges' test data and acceptance criteria. Each incorrect solution submitted is assessed a time penalty. The team that solves the most problems in the fewest attempts in the least cumulative time is declared the winner.

"This team of Stevens computer science undergrads proved itself in an incredibly competitive environment," said Dr. Stephen Bloom, Director of the Department of Computer Science at Stevens. "And a second Stevens team - Joe Marques and Marshall Powers, a freshman - came in 18th in the field of 52. This speaks volumes about the quality of students enrolled at Stevens and the preparation they receive during their time here."

The ACM International Collegiate Programming Contest traces its roots to a competition held at Texas A&M in 1970 hosted by the Alpha Chapter of the UPE Computer Science Honor Society. The idea quickly gained popularity within the United States and Canada as an innovative initiative to assist in the development of top students in the emerging field of computer science.

The contest evolved into a multi-tier competition with the first Finals held at the ACM Computer Science Conference in 1977. Headquartered at Baylor University since the 1980s, the contest has expanded into a global network of universities hosting regional competitions that advance teams to the World Finals.

Since IBM became sponsor in 1997, the contest has nearly tripled. Participation has grown to over 3,000 teams involving more than 17,000 of the finest students and faculty in computing disciplines at over 1,300 universities from 67 countries on six continents.

The contest fosters creativity, teamwork, and innovation in building new software programs, and enables students to test their ability to perform under pressure. It is the oldest, largest, and most prestigious programming contest in the world.

About Stevens Institute of Technology

Founded in 1870, Stevens Institute of Technology is one of the leading technological universities in the world dedicated to learning and research. Through its broad-based curricula, nurturing of creative inventiveness, and cross disciplinary research, the Institute is at the forefront of global challenges in engineering, science, and technology management. Partnerships and collaboration between, and among, business, industry, government and other universities contribute to the enriched environment of the Institute. A new model for technology commercialization in academe, known as Technogenesis®, involves external partners in launching business enterprises to create broad opportunities and shared value.

Stevens offers baccalaureates, master’s and doctoral degrees in engineering, science, computer science and management, in addition to a baccalaureate degree in the humanities and liberal arts, and in business and technology. The university has a total enrollment of 2,150 undergraduate and 3,500 graduate students, with about 250 full-time faculty. Stevens’ graduate programs have attracted international participation from China, India, Southeast Asia, Europe and Latin America. Additional information may be obtained from its web page at www.stevens.edu.  

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