Two Engineering students are among the best in the world for computer programming
Engineering students and keen computer programmers Lasse Wollatz and Radovan Gallo achieved impressive marks in the gruelling 24 hour Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers IEEEXtreme Programming Competition. Out of more than 7,500 teams worldwide, solving problems based on algorithms, cryptography and assembly against the clock, they ranked 161st (7th out of 20 taking part in the UK)
“We started at midnight, it was a challenge to get going but it got easier as time went on.” explains Radovan, a second year student of Aeronautics and Astronautics. “We had a range of problems to tackle, translating from one programming language to another, making code run faster and so on.”
Fourth year Mechanical Engineering student Lasse adds: “It was a good experience combining computer science and software engineering and very well organised by the IEEE student committee.”
Both of them started learning programming while at school and have continued with it as a hobby. They are interested in the current public debate on whether schools should teach coding. “It would be good to introduce children to solve problems analytically at an early age, that would be better than concentrating on particular languages,” says Lasse.
Following graduation, Lasse, who comes from Germany, plans to study for a PhD. Radovan, from Slovakia, wants to set up his own business and is currently involved in the University’s student entrepreneurship and enterprise initiatives.
Lecturer Dr Dina Laila was delighted at their achievement: “I would like to encourage more engineering students to get involved in the IEEE student branch as I know many are strong in programming skills. Hopefully more of them will take part in this contest next time.”
The Southampton IEEE branch is based in Electronics and Computer Science (ECS) The IEEEXtreme global event was won by two ECS first year students Dragos Ristache and Ioana Tamas.
http://www.ieee.org/membership_services/membership/students/competitions/xtreme/index.html
http://www.ieee.ecs.soton.ac.uk/event.php?date=1&read_more_btn=Read+more