October 29, 2008
Computer science students compete in regional programming contest
SEARCY, Ark.—Nine students from Harding University will form three teams to compete in the 33rd annual IBM-sponsored Association for Computing Machinery International Collegiate Programming Contest.The regional contest will occur Saturday, Nov. 1. Over 130 teams from Arkansas, Tennessee, Missouri, Illinois and Kentucky will compete for the top two spots in this region. First and second place teams are guaranteed the chance to travel to Stockholm, Sweden for the international finals from April 18-22, 2009.
Teams at different locations across the region open their problem sets at exactly 12:30 p.m. and have five hours to complete as many problems as possible. Nineteen teams out of the 130 from the five-state region will compete on Harding's campus.
Team Harding Black includes senior David Farrow of Salado, Texas; senior Benny (B.J.) Hardage of Bismarck, Ark.; and senior Matthew Hepburn of North Tonawanda, N.Y. Harding Gold is comprised of senior Ariana Homan-Cruz of San Antonio, Texas; sophomore Ben Pschierl of Oberschleissheim, Germany; and senior Drew Spickes of Sherwood, Ark. The Harding.cpp team is made up of sophomore Weston Castleberg of Fort Worth, Texas; senior Kaley Crum of Bonne Terre, Mo.; and freshman Nathan Hourt of Searcy.
Students will be challenged to use their programming skills, creativity and business sense to solve complex, real world problems. This year's regional competitions are expected to include tens of thousands of students from universities in 83 countries on six continents.
Dr. Steve Baber, professor of computer science, coaches the Harding teams. He and Dr. Tim Baird, chair of the computer science department, are coordinating the regional competition taking place on Harding's campus.
Harding teams have a history of excellence. Baber said, "Harding has sponsored at least one team every year since the fall of 1983. During these 25 years we have qualified for the World Finals twice - finishing in the top 30 worldwide both years."
Harding had a record enrollment this year of more than 6,500 students from 48 states and 51 foreign countries. It is the largest private university in Arkansas and attracts more National Merit Scholars than any other private university in the state. Harding also maintains campuses in Australia, Chile, England, France/Switzerland, Greece, Italy and Zambia.
