Mines students on the
winning “Red Team” are (left to right) Luke Videckis a sophomore computer
science and math major, Matthew Schallenkamp a junior computer science and math
major, and Andrew Stelter a senior computer science major.
A student team of computer
programmers from the South Dakota School of
Mines & Technology will compete at the International Collegiate Programming Contest
(ICPC) April 15-20, in Beijing, China. Follow their progress on the SD Mines YouTube channel.
SD Mines students on the “Red Team”
are Luke Videckis, a sophomore computer science and math major; Andrew Stelter,
a senior computer science major; and Matthew Schallenkamp, a junior computer
science and math major. Those interested in following the team during the
competition can view live coverage of the event
here.
This marks the eighth programming
team in Mines history to qualify for the highest level of competitive collegiate
computer programming in the world. Mines is one of 21 teams representing the
United States at this global competition following the qualifying
contest held November 2017. The
Mines Red Team is the top ranked programming team among several contenders at
the university that also did well in the regional competition.
Mines programming teams are led by
emeritus computer science professors Toni Logar and Ed Corwin. The two
professors bring decades of experience as coaches of Mines’ coding teams. The
long-term successes of this pair of coaches has won acclaim by the ICPC
community. The husband and wife pair were instrumental in bringing the 2017
ICPC world finals to Rapid City. The Mines programming teams also receive
support from coaches Roger
Schrader, Paul Hinker and Larry Pyeatt. Pyeatt
will also serve as on-site coach for the 2018 world finals. Companies such as Microsoft have been
huge supporters of Mines’ programming teams, alongside important contributions
from other donors.
Mines also fared well in the North
American Invitational Programming Contest held Saturday, March 24. Hundreds
of teams competed but only 45 were invited to the top-tier competition. Mines’
Red Team finished 16th overall, beating universities such as Duke,
Purdue, Texas A&M, Colorado School of Mines and the University of
Minnesota. The Hardrockers were the top placing team between the west coast and
Michigan reiterating their dominance in the Upper Midwest.
“It was particularly impressive
that the team finished another problem 10 minutes too late which would
potentially have placed them among the top 10 teams in the country. Hopefully
this finish will give us momentum going into the world finals,” says Coach Corwin.
Russian teams have won the ICPC
world finals for the last six
consecutive years. Russia is largely seen as the country to beat. Two
members of the Red Team, Matthew Schallenkamp and Andrew Stelter, took part in an
elite Russian computer coding boot camp in 2016, and they bring this experience
to the international competition in April. The Mines Red Team also has an
advantage in the experience of Schallenkamp, who returns to the world finals
for a second time after representing Mines in the 2017 competition.