SJC Students to Participate in 2010 ‘Battle of the Brains’

October 17, 2010

PATCHOGUE, NY October 18, 2010 Students from St. Josephs College will be competing against their peers in the 35th Annual Association for Computing Machinery International Collegiate Programming Contest, also called Battle of the Brains, sponsored by IBM. The decisive regional round of problem solving will take place on October 24 at Rutgers University in New Brunswick, NJ. The preliminary contest will continue through December in destinations throughout the United States to gather teams to advance to the World Finals taking place February 7 March 4, 2011 in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt.

Every year, thousands of college students from approximately 90 countries on six continents participate in the International Collegiate Programming Contest. This year, St. Josephs College will be sending two teams to the regional competition with William McAllister, a full-time professor in computer science, as their coach.

"Our two teams have been training all last spring and this fall, so we are hopeful we will do well in our regional meet this Sunday, said Mr. McAllister. "The first and second place teams will go on to the world finals; however, our region is very competitive and includes teams from NYU, Stony Brook, Yale, Columbia, and Cornell among others.

For one afternoon, the brightest college students in the metropolitan area, in teams of three, will come to test their programming skills, problem-solving abilities and mental endurance. These teams will huddle around a computer to solve a dozen complex problems in a painstaking five-hour time period. As a result, the teams that answer the most problems correctly with the fewest attempts and in the least amount of time will advance to the World Finals in Egypt. Finalists will receive awards, scholarships, prizes and bragging rights to the "Worlds Smartest Trophy.

For more information about the 35th Annual Association for Computing Machinery International Collegiate Programming Contest sponsored by IBM, visit www.ibm.com/university/acmcontest.