Problem-solving capabilities put to the test at recent International Collegiate Programming Contest

programming team
Pictured, front row: AJ Hinman. Middle row, l-r, Cole MacDonald and Bhavpreet Arneja; Back row: John Kendall and Cole Beasant.

A group of StFX students challenged their problem-solving capabilities and their ability to implement their solution in code when they competed in the International Collegiate Programming Contest for the Northeast North American region.

The Nov. 10th competition was held across the region with multiple satellite hosting sites. StFX sent two teams to the site hosted by Université de Moncton, where teams from Mount Allison University, The University of New Brunswick, and The University of Prince Edward Island also competed.

StFX Team 1: Bug Squashers, consisting of AJ Hinman, Cole Beasant, and Cole MacDonald, placed 62nd out of 96 teams, while Team 2: Ctrl+Alt+Xterminate, comprised of Bhavpreet Arneja and John Kendall, came in 72nd place.

Both teams are coached by StFX computer science professor Dr. Milton King.

“The International Collegiate Programming Contest is the main competition for programming teams of universities across northeast North America,” Dr. King says.

“The winners of this competition advance to the next level of competition, which is the North American championship. Students attending this competition will be competing against some of the best competitive programming teams in the world.”

Dr. King says each of the two StFX teams were able to solve two problems each during the competition with one team, the Bug Squashers, as the fastest to solve the first problem in Atlantic Canada, in seven minutes.