2008-Stony Brook wins Programming contest; Earns trip to World Finals!

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Stony Brook teams took first *and* third place in the ACM ICPC Greater New York Regional Programming Contest on Sunday, beating out teams from Cornell, Columbia, NYU, and Yale to earn a trip to the World Finals in Stockholm, Sweden this April! For the full story, with team pictures visit http://www.cs.sunysb.edu/~skiena/teams

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The champion Stony Brook 2 (SB2) team of Tynan Fitzpatrick, Roman Kogan, and Leif Walsh were the only team to solve eight problems during the five hour contest. It was a come-from-behind victory, having spent most of the afternoon tied for the lead in problems but behind rival Cornell on time, which is used as a tie breaker. With only twelve minutes to spare, they bagged the winning problem. Leif and Tynan are both juniors and get to defend their regional title next year -- but first some unfinished business aganst the world in Stockholm next April.

The graduate student Stony Brook 1 (SB1) team of John izzo, Aravind Akella, and Jason Wu finished third, giving their teammates a run for the money. They were in the hunt all afternoon, but lost precious time in a subtle data type error. It was a tough break for the graduate students after a terrific team effort.

The freshman-sophmore team of Russell Kraner, Hrushikesh Bhatt, and Arjun Menon finished in 16th place, solving four problems in 237 minutes of elapsed time. This qualified for second place among freshman-sophmore teams, particularly noteworthy for a team with two freshman.

Thanks to acting coach Charles Ward, who took on team leadership during my sabbatical in Hong Kong.