Exeter students up all night for computer programming challenge

A team of University of Exeter students are getting ready to stay up all night to test their computing programming skills.

For 24 hours, from 11pm on Friday 23 October, the PhD computing students will compete with teams across the globe for the coveted title of IEEEXtreme 2009 champions.

IEEEXtreme is an international competition for computing students to put their programming skills to the test. A series of challenges is emailed to the teams, who must then beat the clock, and their competitors, to solve each problem. Organised by professional engineering body, IEEE, the event is now in its ninth year.

The team’s skills in algorithm theory, information and coding, computer networks, control theory and artificial intelligence will all be put to the test.

With a large pot of coffee to hand and 23 years of training and education in computing between them, the team is ready for the challenge.

Team member David Walker said: "We are looking forward to seeing how well we can do against what will be tough competition from around the world."

Dr Jonathan Fieldsend, Computer Science Lecturer at the University of Exeter said: "I think it's great that these computer science students are taking this opportunity to compete with their peers from around the world, enhancing and extending the skills they have developed during their postgraduate training, and engaging with one of the major professional bodies in the field.”

The team members are:
David Walker (23)
Zena Wood (24)
Max Dupenois (24)
Carlos Martinez-Ortiz (27) is the team proctor.

All the team members are PhD students in the School of Engineering, Mathematics and Physical Sciences.

Date: 22 October 2009