Three ANU students have taken out first place in the national rankings at the annual IEEEXtreme programming competition, which sees students face off against each other amongst the world’s smartest problem solvers.
Six teams from ANU entered the competition with team ‘RainbowDash’ taking out first place nationally and 19th in the global rankings. Team members Teresa Bradbury, Andrew Donnellan and Jonathan Erik Franzi were very pleased with the win.
Jonathan found that despite the challenging circumstances of the event, he still had an enjoyable time.
“The challenge of solving algorithms problems quickly and efficiently, and the opportunities for teamwork made IEEEXtreme 2013 a very memorable event. Tessa and Andrew were great teammates, and I hope to compete in a team with them again.”
A close second was the ANU team ‘TwilightSparkle’, consisting of team members Lewin Hodgman, Robert Offner and Buck Shlegeris who came second in Australia and 22nd internationally.
Fifth place was awarded to the team ‘42’ who placed 220th internationally. The team members were Wang Donglu, Grigori Ougrinovski and Miranda Zhang.
The teams were supervised by ANU Fellow Uwe Zimmer and Associate Professor Weifa Liang, who were both very proud of the way the teams conducted themselves over the gruelling 24 hours.
Uwe commented that the student’s cooperation with each other was a highlight for him to observe during the competition.
“It was a pleasure to see our student teams endure an international programming marathon with competence and elegance. Team communication was not only obviously enjoyable but also highly effective. Our students played their multi-lingual programming skills perfectly which gave them a clear edge over the international competition - and a good time while programming.”