Binary Bears Take Two of Top Three Spots at Auburn University

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Binary Bears at Auburn

AUBURN, Ala. – Mercer University’s Binary Bears computer programming team captured two of the top three spots in a regional competition held on the campus of Auburn University this past weekend.

Mercer had two teams of four students competing in the annual competition sponsored by the Consortium of Computing Sciences in Colleges (CCSC) Southeastern fall conference. Both teams solved eight of the nine problems in the problem set correctly in under three hours.

Both Binary Bears teams finished ahead of competition from Furman University, Georgia College and State University, the University of North Carolina at Asheville and Western Carolina University. Complete standings are available online.

Mercer’s team of Connor Day, a senior computer science major from Norcross, Isaiah Hoffman, a sophomore computer science and mathematics double-major from Culloden, Chris Holmes, a junior computer science major from Lawrenceville, and Tim Hood, a senior computer engineering major from Lawrenceville, solved four problems in the first hour and held that lead until the final 20 minutes. They ultimately finished in second place.

A second team of Binary Bears followed just behind them in third place, including Will Darragh, a senior computer science major from Greenwood, South Carolina, Michal Pacholczyk, a senior computer science major from Augusta, Alex Powell, a senior computer science major from Fayetteville, and Harrison Verhine, a senior industrial engineering major from Acworth.

Both Mercer teams worked together with one computer to solve eight problems correctly in a challenging set of nine problems using the Python programming language.

The Binary Bears will compete again Nov. 9 at the ACM International Collegiate Programming Contest on the campus of Kennesaw State University.

They will present a special “Techie Talk” Nov. 15, 10 a.m., in the Willet Science Center Auditorium. The talk is free and open to the public.