Contact: Bob Ratliff
Two Mississippi State University student teams are among the top 10 scorers in a regional computer programming contest.
The MSU groups finished sixth and eighth at the recent Southeast Regional Programming Competition at the University of Florida in Gainesville.
Attracting 70 college and university teams, the event was sponsored by the Association for Computing Machinery, IBM Corp., Borland Corp. and Florida's College of Engineering. Each three-person team had five hours to solve a set of eight problems.
"The competition provides schools with an opportunity to recognize students who excel in computer programming," said Donna Reese, associate professor of computer science and coach of the Mississippi State teams.
"Each team has one computer, so teamwork is a part of the strategy," she added.
Team MSU-2, the sixth-place winner, included Raghu Angadi of Anantapur, India, Yong Tze Chi of Penang, Malaysia, and Kiril Vidimce of Skopji, Macedonia.
Team MSU-1, the eighth-placed group, included Torey E. Alford of Collierville, Tenn., Don E. Goodman Jr. of Columbus and Lee R. Klimek Jr. of North Royalton, Ohio.
Sean L. Taylor, an MSU graduate student in computer science from Munford, Tenn., is assistant coach and alternate team member.
Georgia Tech fielded the first-place winner. Other schools with one or more top-10 finishers included Auburn, Clemson, Florida Institute of Technology, Florida State, and University of Central Florida.