RIT Hosts “Battle of the Brains” Computer Programming Contest, Nov. 8

Student teams from RIT and 15 other colleges and universities will compete

Imagine completing a semester’s worth of computer programming in one afternoon. Collegiate computer programming teams from across the region will do just that in an all-out “battle of the brains” at Rochester Institute of Technology.

The IBM-sponsored ACM International Collegiate Programming Contest will take place from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. on Saturday, Nov. 8, on the third floor of RIT’s B. Thomas Golisano College of Computing and Information Sciences.

Student teams from RIT and 15 other colleges and universities in the northeastern U.S. and portions of Canada—including Harvard University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Brown University and University of Rochester—will take part in the event.

This worldwide competition, established nearly 30 years ago, will gather tens of thousands of college participants (more than 3,000 teams) from 68 countries during its preliminary rounds through December. Seventy-two teams will be selected to compete at the 2004 World Finals, to be held March 28 through April 4 in Prague, Czech Republic.

The 28th Annual Association for Computing (ACM) International Collegiate Programming Contest pits teams of three students, huddled around one computer, against a host of complex real-world problems that must be solved in a set amount of time. The competition tests programming skills, creativity and teamwork. Successful teams will advance to the World Finals.