UC San Diego team takes 4th place in regional programming competition

A team of UC San Diego computer science students tied with seven other campuses for first place in the 2015 ACM Southern California Regional Programming Contest on Nov. 14.

The tie was finally resolved based on the time it took to solve problems, with the UC San Diego team landing in fourth place, after Caltech, USC and UCLA. Fourth-ranked UC San Diego Team "Phuket" comprised of Juliati Alafate, Chicheng  Zhang and Lifan Wu.

Hat tip to graduate student coaches Igors Stepanovs and Yuliang Li, as well as faculty coach Michael Taylor.

In all, UC San Diego fielded four teams during the competition. The other three teams placed 14th, 15th and 19th out of 89 teams that took place in the competition. Members of the other three teams were:

Karan Wadhera
Jason Wu
Timothy Wang

Archana Radhakrishna
Darshan Patil
Ujjwal Gulecha

Huayin Zhou
Galen Krulce
Huajie Wu

Yeyao Tao
Junxi Li
Zhiwei Jia
Sung Rim Huh

More info:
Team website:  http://cseweb.ucsd.edu/groups/UCSDProgramContest/
For final standings, go to:  http://socalcontest.org/history/2015/details-2015.shtml

Boy Scouts coming to campus for electronics, programming workshops with IEEE

Boy Scouts from all over San Diego County will be on campus tomorrow, March 8, for the STEM Merit Badge Fair sponsored by the UCSD Student Branch of IEEE. Organizer and computer engineering student, Jeremy Kao, said the event is in its second year and designed to get middle school and high school students excited about pursuing higher education in a STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) field.

Last year's event hosted more than 150 area Boy Scouts who learned to "solder, assemble circuits, the basics of electricity and electronic components, the many sensors of a robot, and the thinking that goes into designing a robot," says Kao. This year's workshops will focus on electronics and programming.

We can't wait to see the pictures, but here is a snap from last year's event.  The March STEM Merit Badge fair will be from 9a.m. to 5 p.m., March 8, in the Humanities and Social Sciences building.

More than 100 turn out for beginners' programming competition

A total of 118 students turned out for the 2014 winter quarter beginner's programming competition, sponsored by Google and organized by the UC San Diego chapter of Women in Computing. The contest targeted programmers who just were getting their start. They could work in teams or by themselves to answer a series of questions. Everyone got some swag and free pizza.
See below for pictures of the fun.

Never too early to hack like a champion

The Women in Computing group at UC San Diego hosted a beginner's programming competition Saturday, Nov. 23 in the CSE Building. The contest was designed specifically for undergraduates who haven't yet taken upper division courses.
Students could work in teams of two or by themselves. They had to answer a series of questions coded in JAVA--and got free pizza.
Here are some pictures of the fun.