[img_inline align=”right” src=”http://padnws01.mcmaster.ca/images/programmingcompetition1.jpg” caption=”From left, Sanjay Patel, Shiqi Cao and William Hau, computing and software students in the Faculty of Engineering at McMaster, finished eighth out of 116 teams in the 2007 East Central North America Regional Programming Contest. Photo by Derek Lipiec.”]One hundred and sixteen teams. Sixty-seven universities and colleges. Four contest sites. Eight problems. Five hours. This was the scene at the 2007 East Central North America Regional Programming Contest (ECNA RPC) held on Saturday, Nov. 10. McMaster University played host to 27 teams from 12 universities as one of four regional contest sites.

Amid the frantic efforts to complete eight computer programming problems in the shortest time possible, one of two teams from McMaster finished eighth among the 116 teams competing. This placed McMaster fourth in the overall school ranking, just one place shy of qualifying for the world finals.

Sanjay Patel, Shiqi Cao and William Hua, all computing and software students in the Faculty of Engineering at McMaster, were able to correctly complete five of the eight questions within the five-hour time limit. This put them ahead of teams from schools such as the University of Michigan, Notre Dame, Purdue, Penn State and Ohio State.

“The team did amazingly well, especially against universities known as powerhouses in computer programming,” said Jacques Carette, assistant professor of computing and software, and site director for the competition at McMaster. “Some of the most talented young programmers in the world were on campus for this competition.”

The three teams from the region qualifying to move on to the prestigious Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) International Collegiate Programming Contest (ICPC), which is sponsored by IBM, are from the University of Waterloo (first overall in the region), Carnegie Mellon University and the University of Toronto.

This year's finals are being held in Banff, Alberta from April 6 to 10, 2008. A total of 90 teams, qualifying through worldwide regional competitions, will be competing.

This was the first year McMaster played host to one of the competition sites. The other three sites were located in Ann Arbour, Michigan, Cincinnati, Ohio and Youngstown, Ohio. The four universities were connected electronically to tabulate results throughout the day.