Winthrop places third at site in “Battle of the Brains”

By Amanda Phipps
phippsa@mytjnow.com

(From left) James D’Aniello, Ryan Nikin-Beers, Brandon Clopton and Bethany Ritter. Photo by Aimee Harman • harmana@mytjnow.com Winthrop has brains.

With a team of three students, Winthrop placed as the third best school at their site in the “Battle of the Brains” competition on Oct. 29, said William Thacker, associate professor of computer science.

The competition, hosted by the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) and sponsored by IBM, was held at three different sites. Winthrop was one of 78 teams from 28 different schools in the competition and placed third out of 12 schools competing at the same site (Georgia Southern University) and 26 of the total of 78 teams who competed, Thacker said. 

Out of the schools, Winthrop was the smallest, with most of the competing schools having 20,000 to over 50,000 students, Thacker said. Winthrop beat every team from schools such as College of Charleston and The Citadel.  

“(This) is one of our best placements in this competition,” he said. “Only two schools at our site beat us.”

For the programming competition, each team (with three members) is given one computer and 10 problems to solve in a five-hour time period, Thacker said. The answers are then submitted to a computer judge.

“It has to be a teamwork competition,” he said.  “They write the problems in a way that people sometimes make assumptions.”

Thacker said the team met twice a week and practiced for three-hour sessions every other weekend up to the competition. He said the problems take a certain skill level.

“Some are just plain difficult problems,” he said. “They make math word problems look easy.”

 Out of all the teams, the winning team got 7 out of 10 problems correct and there were two problems that no one in the competition got right, Thacker said. Winthrop was one of several schools to get two out of 10 right.

If there was a tie, the placement of the teams was then determined by how quickly the team solved the problems, he said.

If teams submitted a wrong answer, they were given penalty time. Thacker was proud to say Winthrop did not get any penalty time.

“Every time they turned something in, it was right,” he said.

Team members James D’Aniello, Brandon Clopton and Ryan Nikin-Beers  were happy with the results as well. 

“I thought the competition results were quite amazing,” D’Aniello said. 

 Thacker said he chose the team members based on their performance in CSCI 271, which Thacker said acts like the gate-way course for computer science majors.

“That is the nature of that beast,” he said.

 Thacker said he knows what skill levels are needed for this competition and recruits students based on their performance in this course.

 “(The course) is notorious for being difficult and challenging,” he said. “I get to see how students react under pressure.”

D’Aniello said the competition was intense. 

“At first, I didn’t know what to expect because it was my first year competing,” he said. “It all got pretty hectic toward the end of the 5 hours. Either people were simply giving up and admitting defeat or they were rushing to get in one last attempt at a problem before the buzzer.” 

Clopton said the team had to work together. 

“It was exciting when we got a problem accepted. These were not easy problems, and took a lot of work to solve,” he said. “ All three of us worked on it and contributed something at some point, so I was pleased with how well we could work as a team.”

Nikin-Beers said the team was better prepared this year. 

“Brandon and I really wanted some redemption this year because we didn’t do so well in last year’s competition,” he said. “This year, we practiced with problems that had actually been used in previous contests, which helped very much.”

Nikin-Beers said Winthrop did well compared to schools of larger sizes. 

“For a small school such as ours, I think we had a pretty good showing, and Dr. Thacker said he was pleased with our performance,” he said. 

Thacker said the point of the competition is for students to have fun

“It’s a (chance for them) to be involved in the spirit of competition,” he said.

The members agreed. 

“It was really fun and I look forward to participating in the future with another team, as Ryan and Brandon are both graduating this year,” D’Aniello said. I’ll definitely miss them next year at the competition.” 

Clopton said the competition can be helpful to careers as well. 

“I hope potential employers can see the hard work put into this and understand how this benefits the students that participate,” he said.