Top 20 percent placing for Concordia programming team

Published by Concordia University, Nebraska 8 years ago on Mon, Nov 9, 2015 11:00 AM
Luke Kaldahl, Nehemiah Langness and Caleb Pfeil are members of a computer programming team from Concordia that placed in the top 20 percent of all teams at the Association of Computing Machinery North Central North America Regional Programming Contest Oct. 31, 2015.

Three teams of computer programming students from Concordia University, Nebraska competed in the annual Association of Computing Machinery (ACM) North Central North America Regional Programming Contest Oct. 31, 2015. Concordia’s team called FFoD placed 39th out of the 223 teams at the event.

“The ACM Programming Contest is a great venue for Concordia University computer science students to participate in activities with a large group of students in the same subject,” said Professor of Computer Science Russell Mosemann. “The knowledge and skills they develop in computer science classes is applied to demanding but fun challenges outside of a class setting.”

The contest is an all-day event that involves several activities. The main focus is a monitored, five-hour session, during which each team writes programs on a computer to solve a series of problems without using outside resources. After completing a program, the team submits the program electronically to judges who test it and either accept the solution or return the program for more work.

Teams are ranked by the number of correct solutions and, in the case of a tie, by the least time to complete the solutions. No team solved all of the problems.

The region covered in this competition extends from Colorado to Wisconsin and from Missouri into Canada. Teams from universities and colleges meet at 16 contest centers across the region to participate in this event, with the top teams continuing to the world competition held in Thailand.

Competition participants include:

  • Luke Kaldahl, senior, Spencer, Iowa, member of the team "FFoD"
  • Nehemiah Langness, senior, Larned, Kan., member of the team "FFoD"
  • Caleb Pfeil, senior, Hiawatha, Iowa, member of the team "FFoD"
  • Jonathon Anderson, sophomore, Seward, Neb., member of the team "Jacobian Cubed"
  • Jacob Henson, senior, Herrin, Ill., member of the team "Jacobian Cubed"
  • Cole Wohlemuth, sophomore, Alton, Iowa, member of the team, "Jacobian Cubed"
  • Peter Deberny, freshman, North Tonawanda, N.Y., member of the team "Hello World"
  • Jonathan Grant, freshman, Waterloo, Ill., member of the team "Hello World"
  • Caleb Ristvedt, freshman, Utica, Neb., member of the team "Hello World"