On Wednesday, a team of three students from Russia’s Saratov State University won the 2006 Association for Computing Machinery’s International Collegiate Programming Contest by successfully completing more ridiculously complex computing-related challenges than any other school, the Associated Press reports via Yahoo News.
Teams of three from universities and colleges across the globe were given five hours to solve 10 challenges that could take months to complete under normal circumstances, according to the AP.
Saratov took first place by solving six of the 10 problems in the allotted time, more than any other school, the AP reports.
Igor Kulkin, a 21-year-old Saratov attendee who participated in the 30th annual Computing Machinery International event, said, “I am pleased with our performance today. It feels pretty good,” the AP reports.
According to the AP, the following are simplified versions of the challenges the teams were faced with:
1) Create a program that tabulates how clock gears can connect to an hour and minute hand, based on a set input shaft speed with a three-gear maximum per shaft.
2) Write a program that can determine a network of people’s maximum quantity of degrees of separation.
3) Build a system that connects the various different arms of a corporate network using the least amount of funding.
The students from Saratov won a $10,000 scholarship and computer equipment from event sponsor IBM, the AP reports.
Three runner-up first-place medals were awarded along with $3,000 to The University of Twente in the Netherlands, Russia’s Altai State Technical University and Poland’s Jagiellonian University of Krakow, according to the AP.
Silver and bronze medals, as well as prize money, were also awarded to a handful of schools including the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the AP reports.
Doug Heintzman, director of IBM’s Lotus division, told the AP that IBM hired at least 80 winners of previous contests.
“Inside the head of one of those kids is a cure for cancer or AIDS,” he told the AP. “It’s sitting out there.
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