UNL shines in computer competition

LINCOLN — Three teams from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln placed in the top 10 in a recent computer programming competition.

UNL was the host school for the North Central North America Regional competition of the IBM-sponsored Association for Computing Machinery International Collegiate Programming Contest. The event featured 37 teams from 14 schools from Iowa, Kansas, South Dakota, Minnesota, Nebraska and Kansas.

At least one of the UNL teams is likely to advance to the world finals in China in 2010.

The competition at the UNL site has grown in recent years to be the largest of the approximately dozen sites that run the contest simultaneously, connected by computer networks. In all, about 200 teams of three students each competed. No other Midlands colleges finished in the top 10.

The top team in each region goes to the world finals Feb. 1-6 in Harbin, China. Additional wild-card teams, typically two or three from the region, are invited to round out the top 100 teams at the world finals.

Charles Riedesel, coach of the UNL teams and director of the UNL site, has had teams advance from the regional level to the world finals in seven of the past 11 years. Riedesel said a wild-card invitation could come in a few weeks.

The Incendiary Pigs team of Tim Echtenkamp of Cairo, Neb.; Tyler Lemburg of Dannebrog, Neb.; and Steve Trout of Batavia, Ill., won the regional last year to qualify for the world finals.

This year, a team from the University of Wisconsin at Madison bested the Incendiary Pigs.

UNL's Drop Table team of Justin Popek of Firth, Neb.; Chris Rummel of Dickinson, N.D.; and Alan Wigness of Fortuna, N.D., placed third at the UNL site and sixth in the region.

UNL's Phelpsian IT team of John Benes of Omaha; Dylan Douglas of Sidney, Neb.; and Justin Hicks of Spearfish, S.D., placed fourth at the UNL site and seventh in the region.

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