ACM International Collegiate Programming Contest

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ACM International Collegiate Programming Contest (abbreviated as ACM/ICPC or just ICPC) is an annual activity of the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) that provides college students with an opportunity to demonstrate and sharpen their problem-solving and computing skills. The event is sponsored by IBM.

ISU started participating in the contest in 2000.

1 History
2 Achievements
3 How to participate
4 In The Daily
5 News articles
6 External links

[edit] History

In the spring semester of 1999, Yogy Namara and Aravind Krishnaswamy held a programming contest sponsored by the Computer Science Club. Several more contests were held afterward, for which Yogy Namara designed problems and judged solutions. This passion for competitive programming later resulted in an initiative to compete for the ACM ICPC for the first time.

To form the pilot team, another programming contest was held. Yogy Namara, who was chosen by default, would join the top two placing contestants. These turned out to be Sean Stanek and Stjepan Rajko.

The first step to the World Finals is the Regionals competition. For ISU, this is the North Central North America region, which encompasses Minnesota, Wisconsin, Western Ontario, Manitoba, Iowa, North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, and Kansas. The university sent a total of three teams to compete in Lincoln, Nebraska.

Optimistic from knowing what they were capable of, while still being realistic from not knowing what the competition was going to be like, the final outcome was beyond their wildest dreams: the pilot team took first place in the regional, while the other two ISU teams placed 20th and 23rd.

Thus a ticket to the 2000 World Finals was secured. The competition was much tougher, but the team went on and took 22nd place. The same team competed again in the following year, taking 2nd place in the Regionals and 29th place in the 2001 World Finals.

The baton was then passed to the next generation of students. A 7th place ranking at the Regionals denied the privilege to compete in the following year, but Josh Carlson, Brett Kail and Joshua Woods qualified and competed in 2003 and placed 43rd. Sadly, ISU did not qualify for the 2004 and 2005 World Finals.

[edit] Achievements

The table summarizes the placements for the past competitions, listed by the years of the World Finals. Only the best placements in the Regionals of the preceeding years are listed. Only the members of the teams that qualified for and competed in the World Finals are listed. DNQ=Did Not Qualify. N/A=Not Applicable.

Year	Regionals	World Finals	Members
2000	1	22	Yogy Namara, Stjepan Rajko, Sean Stanek
2001	2	29	Yogy Namara, Stjepan Rajko, Sean Stanek
2002	7	DNQ	N/A
2003	3	43	Josh Carlson, Brett Kail, Joshua Woods
2004	23	DNQ	N/A
2005	16	DNQ	N/A
2006	12	DNQ	N/A

[edit] How to participate

Probably by contacting Yan-Bin Jia in the Computer Science department. He's the faculty advisor for the Computer Science Club. The Electrical and Computer Engineering department had also sent teams in the past.