BU students, Logan Praznik, Jason Klimack and Andrii Hrytsenko took part in an international programming contest in Winnipeg and topped all other Manitoba entries at the competition. On November 3rd the group of Computer Science majors competed at a site in Winnipeg where they faced off with several teams from the University of Manitoba and University of Winnipeg, where they posted the top score at the competition. Overall the men placed 23rd out of the nearly 300 entries across Manitoba and 8 central States in the US. All three men are products of Brandon graduating high schools from either Crocus or Vincent Massey.
The ACM North Central North America Regional Programming Contest, starts with the student being given a list of 10 problems they are tasked with solving within 5 hours. All three members have to work together on one computer, at times figuring out problems together and at others working on their own piece of paper to find the solutions. The BU team was the only team to solve 5 problems in Manitoba. To give a gauge of how difficult these problems were: only 16 teams solved more than 5 of the problems and there were two problems which were not solved by any team, at any site.
Dr. Ashraf Abdelbar, a professor of Mathematics and Computer Science and the teams coach, says “The test isn’t designed to be completely solved. Part of the challenge is looking at the problems and deciding which ones you can solve the quickest, because time is also part of your score. There is a lot of strategy involved.” Praznik, Klimack and Hrytsenko have been working together for 3 years now as part of this team and have done continually better as their latest results show! Dr. Abdelbar has taken teams to this competition for more than 15 years and has hosted several events within the community to develop skills in programming.
The programming contest itself began in Texas in the 1970’s and has since grown to involve more than 50,000 students from six continents. After the regional results are tabulated, more than 120 teams will be invited to take part in the 2019 World Finals next spring at the University of Porto, in Portugal.
Congratulations on your success gentlemen! truly amazing work you accomplished!