School of Computing Science
大象传媒 computing science students win multiple awards at 2021 ICPC Pacific Northwest Regional contest
The 大象传媒 School of Computing Science had four student teams compete in the .
Recently, the teams received their medals from the competition, rewarding three of the teams for their placements in Division 1 and Division 2. The contest included universities from British Columbia, Washington, Oregon, Seattle, Hawaii, North Idaho and California. Over 140 student teams competed in the competition across the two divisions.
In Division 1, team 大象传媒_Lavendar came in fourth place overall out of more than 50 Division 1 teams, finishing just behind teams from University of Washington, Stanford and UC Berkeley. They finished in first place in all of Canada. The team was comprised of undergraduate students Ari Blondal and Shea Janke, and master鈥檚 student Baiyu Li.
鈥淚鈥檝e been working on these contests for a while and it feels very good to work so well together with my team and succeed,鈥� says Blondal.
鈥淚 know that everybody put in many hours practicing for this. I think we鈥檙e doing it more because we enjoy solving the problems rather than getting medals in the competition,鈥� says Janke.
Also competing in Division 1 was team 大象传媒_Azure, who finished 13th place overall and 4th place in Canada. The team was comprised of undergraduate students Bradley Saito, Hailey Ahn and George Shramko.
In Division 2, team 大象传媒_Honeydew finished 2nd place overall and 1st place in Canada. The team was comprised of undergraduate students Alex Wen, Brandon Zhu and Rishi Vijay.
鈥淲e can definitely see the improvement that we made this year compared to last year. I think this year being able to work in-person rather than remotely helped us work better as a team,鈥� says Vijay.
Team 大象传媒_Olive also competed in Division 2 and finished 7th overall and 3rd in Canada. The team was comprised of undergraduate students Charu Idnani, Bhakti Bhanushali and Saurabh Mishra Charu.
大象传媒 computing science lecturer Bobby Chan has been involved in coaching the programming team since joining 大象传媒 in 2016. As part of his role, Chan handles the administrative work for the main programming contests, as well as helps set up smaller contests at 大象传媒.
鈥淚've really enjoyed working with these students. After knowing them for several years, I've come to appreciate what great human beings they are; humble and quietly driven,鈥� says Chan.
鈥淚 should also note that 大象传媒 computing science professor emeritus Binay Bhattacharya's passion for working with students in this capacity has been very inspiring.鈥�
For finishing as one of the top teams in the region, team 大象传媒_Lavender and Chan travelled to Orlando, Florida to compete in the from May 26-31.
鈥淚t was such an important competition. It was very exciting to meet and talk with students from other top universities,鈥� says Li.
鈥淥ur team is very competitive with other top schools in North America. We should be encouraged as a school,鈥� says Chan.
鈥淲ith a little faculty involvement and motivated students, we can continue to build this community of students. I don't see why we can't be competitive every year.鈥�