Jason Koski/University Photography

From left, Jong-Hwi Lee, JiaQi Zhai, Hooyeon 'Haden' Lee and Yun Jiang in Upson Hall computer lab.

Cornell teams placed first, fifth and 18th out of 51 teams at the 2009 Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) Greater New York regional programming contest, Oct. 18 at Hofstra University in Hempstead, N.Y.

Cornell's first-place team will compete in the ACM International Collegiate Programming Contest at Harbin Engineering University in Harbin, China, Feb. 1-6, 2010. This will be the fourth year in a row that Cornell has been represented at the international competition.

"The last three times Cornell has gone to the international finals we have placed around 40th and 50th, but this year I think the team we have is going to do much better," said Hooyeon "Haden" Lee '10, who competed in the three previous contests and coached all three teams this year. "Many other teams in this competition submitted wrong answers to the judges, but none of the three Cornell teams made a mistake," he noted.

The regional contest presents teams of three students with nine problems that must be solved by writing a computer program. The team that solves the most problems in the shortest time wins. Problems include mathematical theory and puzzles, and in this case one semi-practical question: What's the least number of times you have to drop glass balls out of a tall building to find out how high you have to go to break them?

Cornell's first-place team, calling itself the "Big Red Bears" and comprising Jong Hwi Lee '10, Jiaqi Zhai '12 and Yun Jiang, a first-year Ph.D. candidate, solved all nine problems within 101 minutes; Columbia came in second at 136 minutes. The Cornell team also broke the previous Cornell record -- set by the 2007 team -- of 126 minutes.

Cornell's fifth-place team, the "Big Red Bees" -- Yu Cheng '12, Supasorn Suwajanakorn '11 and Pakawat Phalitnonkiat '11 -- also solved all nine problems, finishing at 268 minutes to be edged out by Columbia, Binghamton and Princeton teams.

The "Big Red Beans" -- Jae Yong Sung '11, Kyu-Young Kim '12 and Seok Hyun '12 -- solved five problems to place 18th.