The ACM International Collegiate Programming Contest (ICPC), sponsored by IBM, is the premiere global programming competition conducted by and for the world’s universities. The contest has grown to include thousands of teams from more than 2,000 universities in 94 countries. This year, for the first time, Rhodes College was a host site for the regional ICPC competition.
Two Rhodes teams competed—Cache Money (Will Cobb, Thomas Threlkeld, and Evan Deere) and Rhodes Bytes (Preston Tunnell Wilson, Ansel MacLaughlin, and Kris Baker), with Cache Money winning first place. Members were awarded Amazon Fire tablets.
For the five-hour competition, students had to write programs to solve computer problems, and teams were ranked based on how many problems they solved and the time it took to solve them, with penalties for wrong submissions.
“We are very lucky to have had the support of the administration to put on this prestigious event,” says Dr. Betsy Sanders, Rhodes ICPC site director and an associate professor of computer science. “It’s a joy to see students from different universities on campus here at Rhodes sharing a passion for computing! I’m particularly excited that the Rhodes teams did so well in the competition. Computer science interest has grown tremendously here, and we are happy to support these talented students. We are greatly appreciative to the Rhodes College IT department for putting on this event in cooperation with us. We have an awesome IT support staff, and without their tireless efforts, this would never have been possible. Rhodes is truly a community that comes together and cares about its commitment to students.”