Press Release – February 27, 2009  

For Immediate Release

McQuaid Jesuit High School from Rochester, NY won the Twenty-first Annual Invitational High School Programming Contest at St. Bonaventure University held on Friday, February 27, 2009.  The McQuaid Jesuit team solved all nine problems correctly and did it in a total of 509 minutes.  North Allegheny Senior High from Wexford, PA, placed second, solving six problems in a total of 373 minutes.  Williamsville North High School from Williamsville, NY, placed third, correctly solving five problems in a total of 555 minutes.  This was the third time that McQuaid Jesuit (2002, 2004) has won the competition.

Teams consist of up to four team members, all of whom must be enrolled at their respective high schools.  Teams were given a set of nine problems, a computer in a lab in the Walsh Science Center, and three hours in which to solve as many of the problems as possible.  Teams are ranked based upon the number of problems that they solve and the time in which they solve them.  Among other challenges, this year's problem set required teams to perform simple travel computations, to measure the quality of manufactured components, to solve (and check solutions to) logic puzzles and to simulate job-scheduling software.

Seventeen teams from thirteen schools in Western New York and Northwestern Pennsylvania, competed in the one-day contest which was sponsored by the St. Bonaventure University Computer Science Department.  Also key to the success of the competition was the assistance of Dan Donner, Brian Kellogg, and Wayne Oonk from the University’s Technology Services Department.  Doug Patrone of Applied Dimension, Inc. configured the contest environment and judging database.  Approximately 15 St. Bonaventure University computer science students contributed time and expertise to the set up, administration, monitoring, and judging of the contest.

During the competition, the teams’ faculty advisors were treated to a presentation on robotics by Dr. Anne Foerst of the St. Bonaventure Computer Science Department.  There was also a presentation about the western New York chapter of the Computer Science Teacher's Association, a group of professionals dedicated to improving computer science education from grades 1-12.

The winning team from McQuaid Jesuit consisted of Doug Natalie, Zachary Luebberts, Alex Noeth, Douglas Miller;  Mr. John Maxwell accompanied the team as their advisor.  The North Allegheny team consisted of Dasun Wang, Nimish Telang, Stacey Chen, and Katherine Luo; Ms. Debora Gottshall served as their advisor.  The third place team from Williamsville North consisted of Jordan Dawson, Imad Kariapper, Ben Joyce, and Robert Chu; Mrs. Susan Recoon served as their advisor.  

In addition to the top three teams, the competition included students from the following schools:  The Dalton School, Fairport High School, Greece Arcadia High School, Ithaca High School, Livonia High School,  Scio Central School, Seneca Valley High School, Union-Endicott High School, Webster Schroeder High School, and Webster Thomas High School.

Contest results, including contest questions, previous results, and contest rules are now available on the World Wide Web at http://www.cs.sbu.edu/contest/. 

Further information can be obtained by calling the contest director, Dr. Steven K. Andrianoff, at 375-2053.