This spring, teams from UGA’s School of Computing competed in the South East Region of the annual algorithmic programming contest held by International Competitive Programming Contest (ICPC). ICPC is the oldest and largest programming contest in the world. The competition was held at UNG Dahlonega, one of the sites for the Southeast region of the competition. The competition lasted five hours and each team was made up of a maximum of three members trying to solve sets of coding problems with varying difficulties. UGA is within a select set of only five schools from the SEC conference – joining Vanderbilt, Texas-Austin, Florida and Texas A&M to be compete nationally at ICPC. The contest consists of algorithmic problem solving which is about creating a step-by-step process to solve a problem. The goal is to turn insights into an efficient solution that works within the problem’s constraints. Team UGA 1 is headed to compete at the national stage and includes UGA School of Computing students, Hiep Pham, Rishith Auluka and John Song and is coached by School of Computing Principal Lecturer Dr. Brad Barnes. UGA 1 is only one of four teams from the South-East Region to be invited to the national competition. “We prepared for the competition by doing online practice problems on sites like LeetCode and Codeforce as well as mock contests from last year’s problem sets,” said ICPC Student Chair and SoC sophomore Hiep Pham. “We are also involved in clubs like Solve UGA.” In layman’s terms Pham explains that algorithmic problem solving is about creating a step-by-step process to solve a problem. In competitions, the problem statement often hides the actual algorithm, so the four-step process looks like this: make observations and spot patterns; design an algorithm within the given time and memory limits; visualize implementation step by step and, finally, write the code and debug if necessary. Pham says, “Our goal is to turn insights into an efficient solution that works within the problem’s constraints. Problems can use algorithms like dynamic programming, graph related algorithms, data structures, and more.” School of Computing Principal Lecturer Brad Barnes notes. “I have worked with members of the ICPC team through SolveUGA, a weekly problem-solving group tackling computer science challenges of varying difficulty.” He continues, “Over the past year, Hiep has led UGA's competitive programming group (ICPC), helping students enhance their problem-solving skills and navigate the contest environment. I am so proud out ICPC team and the talent here at School of Computing and can’t wait to see what UGA 1 will do on the national stage.” “I hope this success inspires other students to participate in local and regional contests in the future,” notes Barnes. “The skills honed through ICPC are highly valued in the computer science industry, where many high-profile companies sponsor the national competition in search of individuals with these talents.” The winning team competes on the national stage at the University of Central Florida in Orlando from May 22-27. Type of News/Audience: Student Success
