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.

How do you program all that into a pixelated snowball fighter?

After the initial panic, you hire Joey Scarr, Edwin Flores and Thomas Steinke, also known as Team J.E.T. Joey and Edwin are both working towards honors in Bachelors of Computer Science at the University of Canterbury and are both employed by Telogis®, a fleet management software company that values high-end computer programming.

Team J.E.T. celebrate after winning the Snowball Fight challenge

Teams were given just two weeks to code their snowball fighters. It was like a game of chess, except harder because you didn’t know what your opponents moves were until game time. In fact, the slogan for the competition could well have been very similar to a hit, reality TV show: “Outwit, outplay, outlast”.

The programmers needed all of the following attributes:

• Fast programming skills to both start and finish a project in record quick time
• Adaptability to allow them to take on new tasks never done before
• Creativity to think laterally and approach any challenge from a new angle
• Logical thinking to make sure the challenge was worked through systematically
• Ability to dodge bullets, well snow bullets anyway

After the dust settled, Team J.E.T. had beaten off 16 elite programming teams from around the world to score the most points and win the competition. They really had built the ultimate snowball fighting machine.

Telogis values smart programming

It’s this kind of programming that Telogis looks for in its developers. Developers who are sharp, agile and can respond intelligently to new challenges. Fleet tracking is an industry that is constantly evolving and benefiting from new technology. These developments are opening up lots of opportunities for fleets to monitor and manage their vehicles in new ways, resulting in productivity gains and a more efficient fleet overall.

But you need smart programmers who can capitalize on these new technologies to build that into your fleet management software. If you’re with Telogis then you’ve made the right choice, and you can rest easy knowing you’ve got some of the sharpest minds working on new ways to make your fleet management software even better and more useful.

Team J.E.T. showed that brilliant programmers are not only good for winning snowball fights but can build great applications for operators to manage and run profitable fleets.

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.

Team J.E.T recently proved how sharp they were by winning a mentally demanding contest against some of the best and brightest in the business, beating out more than 80 other university teams to win the pacific ACM- ICPC (Association for Computing Machinery International Collegiate Programming Contest). Sponsored by IBM, the competition, which has been running since 1970, requires a team of three to share one computer and solve as many problems as possible from a challenging set of about ten, within just five hours.

However, more than just a win is to be celebrated here. The old adage that ‘it’s not what you’ve got, it’s how you use it’ is the real story here. With the likes of Team J.E.T using their obvious talents for good and not evil, we can look forward to better conditions for all. GPS tracking solutions can offer so much to both commercial and non-profit organizations.

Consider for a moment what GPS tracking and fleet management applications are currently benefiting society:

• Reduced fuel usage and worker overtime, keeping businesses profitable, the economy positive and redundancies down
• Minimized carbon footprint helping reduce the impact of climate change
• Faster response times for disaster relief, such as getting utility trucks to restore power to affected areas
• More efficient handling of civilian evacuations with smart route planning software
• Increased safety of isolated workers or people in dangerous and remote locations
• Effective recovery of stolen assets, alerting authorities to crime rings operating in the area
• Faster, safer routing for time-critical deliveries by emergency workers

And while the technology has boomed in the last few years, in many ways it is still in its infancy. But with network speeds improving, improved satellite imagery, better infrastructure and more vehicles being fitted with GPS devices, not to mention smart programmers like Joey and Edwin building intelligent GPS fleet tracking applications, the future is full of possibilities.

Barak Obama’s campaign slogan “Yes we can” holds just as true for improving the way we manage vehicle fleets as it does for political change. To know that young, sharp minds are focused on building solutions rather than creating problems is reassuring and good news for the fleet owners and drivers everywhere.

We’ll be keeping a close on exciting developments in GPS fleet tracking and related GPS systems as they come to light. Congratulations and thank you Team J.E.T for being a part of that.