Computer Science students from Bath have beaten their peers from across the country at the 2012 North Western Regional Programming Contest (NWERC) held in Delft, in the Netherlands.
The team of three, sponsored by locally based internet security company Netcraft, are all studying computer science at the University of Bath and came fifth out of over 80 competitors.
Their top-ranking spot put them ahead of teams from other leading UK institutions, including Oxford, Imperial College, and Manchester.
The competition gives 8000 competitors from across the world five hours to solve 11 problems using their computer coding skills. The term ‘coding’ or ‘programming’ refers to the action of creating the written instructions behind computer programmes or web pages.
Computer Science students from Bath have beaten their peers from across the country at the 2012 North Western Regional Programming Contest.
Professor James Davenport from the University’s Department of Computer Science said: “The success our students have had at NWERC 2012 demonstrates their ability to code extremely well from scratch. Through their studies they have developed excellent programming skills and a thorough knowledge of the fundamental algorithms that make up computer science.”
The winning team included James Stanley (20), Robin Lee (19) and Nikolay Yordanov (20). James is currently on his placement year at Netcraft in Bath. He said: “I entered the competition last year and was keen to try it again. I started coding as a hobby when I was a teenager, and got into doing competitions which were good practice for NWERC 2012.
“The sponsorship support we’ve had from Netcraft has been extremely helpful in getting us to the competition, and is very much appreciated.”
A second team from Bath entered the competition year, aiming to gain experience for later events. Adei Josol (19), Andrew Marsh (19) and Twey Kay (22), found the event invaluable.
Twey said: “My mother had an Amstrad computer when I was seven or eight years old. It was a bit limited, but I used to like playing with it to see what I could do. I’ve been practising quite a bit since then, and am looking forward to entering the competition again next year.”
Mike Prettejohn, Director of Netcraft and team sponsor, said: “Lots of companies claim to employ world class programmers, but Robin Lee and James Stanley finishing just two places away from the ACM Programming World Finals is very good independent corroboration about the standard of people at Netcraft.”
“One of the big advantages in doing a Computer Science degree at Bath is the opportunity to work with people like Robin and James at Netcraft during the summer vacations and the Industrial Year.”
Professor Davenport added: “Due to an increased level of interest, there will be a UK and Ireland qualifying event held in 2013, before the 2013 Delft competition. Bath will be amongst the UK universities hosting this qualifier”.
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