BIRMINGHAM, Ala. - Two teams representing the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) Department of Computer and Information Systems will compete in Mobile Saturday, Nov. 7 in the U.S. Southeast regional round of the Association for Computer Machinery (ACM) International Collegiate Contest, sponsored by IBM.
More than 7,000 worldwide teams are participating in the regional rounds of the 34th annual competition, with only 100 teams advancing to the World Finals set for February 2010, in Harbin, China.
The teams representing UAB in the U.S. Southeast region are the Drakes and Hydras. Students Yu Chang, Dan Mondy and Robert Cloud make up team Drakes, and Jeff Frees, Eric Frees and Patrick Butler are team Hydras.
Both teams are making a return trip to the competition in 2009 after a successful showing in 2008. Last year, the UAB Drakes and Hydras swept their subregional group with first and second place finishes and placed in fifth and 13th positions in the overall regional, which included more than 100 teams from the Southeast. Those were the best finishes of any previous UAB teams.
Under the contest rules, teams are given a set of problems to solve with computer programming in a set period of time. They are judged on the number of problems solved and how quickly they resolve the problems; the number of unsatisfactory program attempts also is factored into the scoring.
Learn more about the ACM International Collegiate Contest by clicking here.
About UAB
The Department of Computer and Information Sciences is located within the UAB College of Arts and Sciences. Its undergraduate program provides a bachelor's of science degree with the opportunity to minor in another discipline as well as co-op programs with local industry. CIS also offers programs of study leading to master's and doctoral degrees, as well as interdisciplinary bioinformatics and computer forensics programs.