The region’s most intelligent computer programmers were atLSU this weekend to compete against each other.
“Battle of the Brains” is a competition amonguniversities from around the world, sponsored by IBM and organizedby the Association for Computing Machinery, which advocatesadvancing professionals’ and students’ informationtechnology skills.
The ACM South Central regional contest was held at LSU onSaturday in the Coates Hall and Middleton Library computer labs.There were 77 teams representing 39 universities.
Gabby Silberman, program director for IBM Centers for AdvancedStudies and sponsorship executive for the competition, saidstudents competed on three-person teams to solve eight problems inthe shortest amount of time, with a maximum of five hours. He saidthe team that solves the most problems in the shortest amount oftime will move on to the finals.
Isaac Traxler, coach for the LSU teams, said the 77 teams werefrom Oklahoma, Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama.
Traxler said LSU has hosted the competition for the past fiveyears.
Sara Earl, an organizer of the competition, said LSU is the onlyuniversity with the facilities to accommodate the competition.
Silberman said 3,200 teams from around the world are competingfor 75 slots to go to the world finals in Shanghai, China inApril.
The winners of the world finals will be awarded scholarshipmoney and laptop computers, Silberman said.
Although the team members are not physical athletes, Traxlersaid they practiced like football players, trying to enhancedifferent individual skills.
Othmane Rahmouni, an LSU team member, said the team met at leastonce a week over the summer and this semester to prepare for theprogramming problems.
Silberman said each problem was about a semester’s worthof work.
James Goodwin, IBM judge and writer of the programming problems,said some of the problems were basic and others were advancedalgorithms.
The teams were allowed to have programming books and notes, butno digital help.
Traxler said an LSU team has placed regionally in the top 10twice in the past six years and always finishes as the topLouisiana school.
This year, one of the three LSU teams placed seventh in theregional contest and first from the Louisiana schools. The teammembers were Josh Abadie, Matthew Eastman and Ryan Rousseau.
Traxler said the students learned valuable life lessons from thecompetition. He said they were able to compare their knowledge totheir peers and learn how to work better with others.
Josh Abadie, an LSU team member, said he enjoyed meeting theteams from other universities.
Ivor Page, the coach for the University of Texas in Dallas, saidthe competing students are “our immediate future.” Healso said it is important they succeed.
Silberman said ACM has been organizing the competition for 29years, but seven years ago teamed up with IBM to growinternationally.
Silberman said IBM joined ACM’s efforts because theywanted to bring more attention to technology-based careers. He saidIBM advocates computing and informational technology because it iscrucial to the marketplace and the economy.