Posts Tagged ‘ACM-ICPC’
It seems even snowball fights aren’t beyond the occasional upgrade or two. As part of the 2010 ACM ICPC competition, a challenge was issued to all programming teams from around the world to fight it out with snowballs. The race was on to program the smartest way to beat the opposition with snowballs.
Snowball fights can get ugly especially when there are bragging rights at stake. Fortunately, no one brought a gun to the fight but when you’ve got the smartest programmers in the world scrapping it out, you know they’ll be bringing their A-game to the table.
So how do you win a snowball fight? Speed and agility are important. Reading the play, ducking, diving, weaving and guessing your opponents next move are also vital aspects to staying alive and avoid wearing a snowball in the face. Snow forts are also permitted as part of a defensive strategy, so you can weather the enemy’s counter-strike.
The ACM-ICPC proved that future fleet management software development is in good hands
I’ve always been led to believe that our sharpest minds were being snapped up by wealthy arms manufacturers. Some time ago London’s Guardian Newspaper claimed that ‘more than half the world’s best scientists and engineers [were] employed in the arms race’. So it’s refreshing to know that some of the brightest brains in the world of computer programming are working hard to develop solutions that benefit the environment instead of coming up with new ways of killing people.
Joey Scarr and Edwin Flores are employed by Telogis, a developer of fleet management software programs that assist fleet owners to operate with a much smaller carbon footprint, reducing their fuel usage and encouraging operators to drive more economically. Joey and Edwin, who are also both working towards honors in Bachelors of Computer Science, make up two-thirds of Team J.E.T. (they are the J and E of J.E.T.), with Thomas Steinke as the third team member.
