Each year the U of O participates in the International Collegiate Programming Contest. This contest, sponsored by the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM), is a competition between teams of student programmers to see which team can solve the most programming problems in a short amount of time.

Teams are given a small number of program specifications, along with sample input files and the output that should be generated by each input. When a team thinks it has a working version of a program, they submit it to the judges, who then run it with their own input files. A team's score is based on how many programs they complete, the amount of time it takes them to finish each program, and the number of incorrect solutions submitted (there is a penalty for each incorrect solution).

UO teams compete in the Northwest Regionals against teams from Alaska, British Columbia, Washington, Oregon, Idaho, California and western Nevada. The top two teams from each region are invited to the international finals.

We have had very successful teams in the past. In 1990, one of our teams finished second in the region and later came in 8th at the international competition. The following year another one of our teams again went to the international competition, where they finished in 6th place.

In the past few years we have had several teams who have done well. In 2000 the UO teams competed against almost 50 other teams. One team solved four out of six problems, which would have put them in a tie for 6th place, but penalties dropped them to 14th. Our other team solved three problems to finish 20th. Teams from Berkeley and Stanford represented the region at the international finals.

In 2001 we had three teams of hot shot programmers and placed 10th and 13th in the field of 77 teams competing. In particular we placed a team higher than any other Oregon or Washington team. (As usual, Stanford and Berkeley took the top five positions - but there's always next year.)

2001 teams hard at work

...and at play