Rochester wins 1st Place at CS Games in Montreal

March 26, 2011

 

 

Two teams of CS undergraduates chose to spend the beginning of their spring break, from March 4-6th, competing in Montreal, Canada in the CS Games.   The CS Games is an annual event that brings schools from US and Canada to Montreal for challenges in science, engineering and IT.  After the 3 day competition, UR's team of mostly upperclassmen, "Watson+Jennings Love Children",  came out victorious finishing nearly 10 points ahead of their closest competitors from Ecole de Technologie Superieure.  In sixteen events over 3 days, the team members won six first place trophies, one second place and three third place.  The events ranged from serious programming issues like debugging and algorithms, to more lighthearted teamwork, like a scavenger hunt or team sports.  The other team, "IMA FIRIN MAH LAZER," won second place in the Algorithms competition.

Here are the competitors on each team: 
Watson+Jennings <3 children
Sam Atlas '12, Robin Miller '11, Josh Pawlicki '12, Brad Orego '11, David Klein '12, Harry Ledley '12, Julian Lunger '14, Rintaro Kuroiwa '12, Scott Ames '11, Andrew Keenan-Richardson '11.

IMA FIRIN MAH LAZER
Darcey Riley '12, Emily Danchik '13, Michael Garber-Barron '11, Chris Hill '11, Dan Bartkowski '11, Chris Miller '14, Hap Willis '14, Philip Cohn-Cort '14.

Not only did the students win trophies, but thanks to generous sponsorship by companies like Google, Microsoft, and Amazon, they brought back several prizes that were donated to the department, including their choice of 2 different robots. Erik Wright, from Google (Montreal) recently contacted us about those robots and said, "The Rochester students definitely did great at the games. I wasn't surprised, as I had a chance to talk to several of the team members during the recruiting fair and they really impressed me in terms of their enthusiasm, attitude, and camaraderie. You folks must be doing something right down there ;)."

That collaborative team spirit has helped UR win the CS Games twice before.  Two previous UR teams brought the big trophy, known as the Stanley Cup of Computing, to Rochester.  For a two year reign, 2006 and 2007, the teams were victorious and the Cup stood proudly in CSB 735 for all to appreciate.  The first place trophy will enjoy a place of honor for another year, when the teams will return and vie to bring it back to Rochester for one more year.