Dalton News

Dalton Programmers Take First and Third Place at Cornell Competition

Two Dalton Computer Sciences teams traveled to Cornell University to compete in their 2nd annual programming competition in April. Dalton won first and third prizes. Second prize went to Byram Hills High School in Westchester County.
The contest presented seven problems to be solved by writing computer programs. These included: translating English into Pig Latin, calculating the grade needed on a final exam to pass a class, and counting the guests at an imaginary party.
 
Modeled on the Association for Computing Machinery Intercollegiate Programming Contest, the competition was created last year by Cornell principal research associate Robbert van Renesse, Ithaca High School math and computer science teacher Frederick Deppe. Seventeen teams from eight schools across New York participated.
 
Each team received a computer workstation and could work in any of several programming languages; every team chose Java, which van Renesse said is the most widely taught in high schools. Teams were given pencils and paper and a calculator, but they were not allowed to use other electronic devices or access the Internet.
 
The programs were to run correctly on the judge’s computer within a set time limit. The “judge,” was a computer program that compares the output of the submitted entry with the expected result. No human ever saw the team’s code. The winner was the team that solved the most problems in the allotted three hours.
 
Some problems were easy, and some very hard, but all were worth the same and presented in random order. Part of the challenge was to decide which problems to solve most rapidly. Two teams solved all seven problems, one team solved six, one team solved five, three teams solved four, five teams solved two, four teams solved only one, and one team solved no problems. 
 
Over a break for lunch, David Bindel, assistant professor of computer science, gave a talk on how to calculate pi to many decimal places, and the insights that provides for numerical computing. The talk was beneficial, Van Renesse explained, to show the students that computer science is about more than just programming.
 
Juniors Karina Shah '16, Cal Lavicka '16, and Remy Young '16 composed the first place team.  Andrew Milich '15, Dillon Azzam '15, and Zach  Buttenwieser '15 represented the third place team.

Story and photos by Gordie Campbell, Chair Computer Science and Robotics
Back

Additional Photos

(Grades K-3) 53 East 91st Street
New York, NY 10128
General: (212) 423-5200 | Admissions: (212) 423-5463
General: info@dalton.org | Admissions: fpadmissions@dalton.org

(Gr. 4 Dalton East & PE Center) 200 East 87th Street
New York, NY 10128
General: (212) 423-5200 | Admissions: (212) 423-5262
General: info@dalton.org | Admissions: admissionsmshs@dalton.org

(Grade 5-12) 108 East 89th Street
New York, NY 10128
General: (212) 423-5200 | Admissions: (212) 423-5262
General: info@dalton.org | Admissions: admissionsmshs@dalton.org