UF students placed first and second among more than 200 U.S. teams and 13th and 14th in the world in a recent international programming competition.
Nine teams of UF students competed in the international IEEEXtreme 5.0 24-hour programming competition this year, which was held Oct. 21 and Oct. 22. Results were announced Nov. 7.
Hosted by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, the fifth-annual competition challenged teams to correctly code 13 programming problems released throughout a 24-hour period.
To moderate the competition, the IEEE employed proctors such as Jeff Caldwell, a 22-year-old electrical engineering master's student, and the IEEE UF student chapter president.
The competition featured 1,515 international teams with 227 teams from the U.S. Five of the nine teams of UF students placed in the top 100 teams overall.
CutieMarkCrusaders, composed of Jason Fisher, Joe Thuemler and Cheran Wu, all of the UF programming team, took first place in the U.S. and 13th in the world.
MILatUF, composed of Matt Thompson, Forrest Voight and Will Rolke, all members of Gator Robotics, placed second in the U.S. and 14th in the world.
"I took some breaks, but I didn't sleep the whole time," said Thompson, a 19-year-old computer science engineering sophomore and MILatUF team leader. "It's a great way to put all the normal school stuff aside and just tackle interesting problems."
