The International Collegiate Program Competition Regional was held on Feb. 24, 2024, in Fort Smith. The U of A's electrical engineering and computer science students paced third and fourth in the regional event level of the competition.

Alex Prosser, an EECS student participant, said the International Collegiate Program Competition is a programming competition meant for college students. There are about eight to 12 programming problems of different difficulty levels, and the team that solves the most problems wins.

Prosser said, "So, the entire world's competing in some way. The ICPC goes from a regional competition to a national one, and then to the world. We did not get that far this time. It is a programming competition that tests your ability to create algorithms, apply problem-solving and sharpen optimization."

Prosser explained that some of the problems required less skill than others. He said, "The difficulty is relative, depending on your experience. I found half of them easier to complete than the other ones."

Despite strong competition, the U of A teams placed third and fourth by solving five out of the 12 problems. "So, we solved the four easy ones, and we solved one of the medium ones, which seemed to be the general theme of the whole contest for our site," Prosser revealed.

For Prosser, competitive programming drives him to excel. "I love programming, so adding that competitive nature on top of it makes me want to learn more," he shared.

Reflecting on competitive programming, Prosser encouraged all U of A students in the Electrical Engineering and Computer Science program to try to compete: "I think all programming students should try competing. Honestly, just trying those smaller, easier problems is a place to start, just to see if this is something that interests you."

Congratulations to Rithyka Heng, Christopher Bayless and Ganner Whitmire for placing third, and to Gabriel Garcia, Jack Norris and Alex Prosser for placing fourth in the competition.