The SD Mines Red
Team, who took home first place in the regional competition of the International
Collegiate Programming Contest (ICPC), include (left to right) Michael Pfeifer,
Luke Videckis, and Alexander Iverson.
A student team of coders from the South Dakota School of
Mines & Technology took first place in the regional competition
of the International Collegiate Programming Contest (ICPC), which qualifies SD
Mines for the world finals scheduled for April 2019 in Porto, Portugal.
Mines students on the winning “Red
Team” are Alexander Iverson, Michael Pfeifer and Luke Videckis. Mines’ Red Team
came out
on top of 210 registered collegiate teams from both the United States and
Canada who entered the regional competition this year. Mines is a
member of the North Central
Region of the ICPC which includes schools from South Dakota, Minnesota,
Iowa, Kansas, Nebraska, North Dakota, western Michigan, western Ontario, and
Manitoba. Besides taking home first place in the regional competition, other
Mines’ teams placed 33rd, 43rd, 57th and 77th.
This marks the fourth year in a row
and the ninth programming team in Mines history to qualify for the highest
level of competitive collegiate computer programming in the world.
“The student teams have been
working very hard this year to prepare for the competition and we are very
proud that they were able to win the regional against a very competitive field,”
says Kyle Riley who leads the Department of Mathematics and Computer Science at
Mines. “Our teams consistently
outperform teams from much larger universities which is a testament to the hard
work and dedication of the students,” said Paul Hinker, one of the faculty
advisors for the team.
The Mines Red Team also has an
advantage in the experience of Videckis and Iverson, who each return to the
world finals for a second time. Iverson also represented Mines in the 2017
competition and Videckis in the 2018 competition.
The coaches for this team include Mines graduate students
Matthew Schallenkamp and Andrew Stelter, who competed at the 2018 world finals
in Beijing, China, along with faculty advisors Paul Hinker and Roger Schrader. In
addition, Larry Pyeatt served
as assistant judge for the regionals, and will be a coach, along with Schallenkamp
and Stelter, for the
finals.
The programming team has been supported in the past by Microsoft and
Raven Industries.