This fall marked 17 years that Duke has hosted the ACM Mid-Atlantic regional programming contest.

Since Duke’s first venture as a host in 1996, the Association for Computing Machinery contest has grown to about 150 teams competing at eight campuses along the East Coast. That first year, Duke was one of six contest sites with about 90 teams overall. This November 10, the university hosted 26 regional teams, with five teams of three Duke students each competing.

“The Duke professors, staff and volunteers always do a phenomenal job,” said Kevin Kauffman, an alumnus who was on Duke’s winning team in the 2010 regional contest and ran this year’s problem-solving seminar to help prepare competing students. “With dozens of teams, for an entire day’s worth of events to go so smoothly is awesome. So, there is much gratitude to those volunteers, without whom Duke wouldn’t be able to host a site.”

Prior to the Mid-Atlantic region’s move to distribute the contest over several sites, Duke and other campuses were limited in the number of students they could encourage to participate. Professor Owen Astrachan remembers when the contest was held at one site and students and faculty would have to drive there. Now more students can benefit from the chance to participate.

“The contest provides an opportunity for students to compete in an event that’s not just about physical dexterity/hand-eye coordination but is about mental dexterity,” noted Astrachan, who started Duke’s problem-solving seminar — CompSci 309S — in 1994. Most competing students audit the half-credit course, which Kauffman also helped with last year.

In the contest, teams of three students try to solve as many problems as possible with the use of one computer, programming the solutions in C++ or Java. The contest’s eight problems are presented as real-life scenarios, and teams work to determine the underlying problems and to develop algorithms for the solutions.

Duke’s coders this year had a tough task ahead of them, as the members of last year’s regional winning team had graduated or are no longer eligible for the contest, Kauffman said. Yet they did well, he noted, with three of the teams finishing in the top 15 and all solving at least one problem. Duke’s five teams placed fourth, eighth, 14th, 46th and 59th.

Like the region’s winning team — the University of Maryland at College Park — the top Duke team solved five of eight problems. That would have been enough in most years to be among the top three invited to the world finals of the ACM International Collegiate Programming Contest. However, N.C. State’s top team moved ahead of Duke by solving five problems but doing it in less total time.

“Either way, I told them I’m incredibly proud of how they did,” Kauffman said, “not just the top team but all of them.”

Students on Duke’s top teams will be eligible to compete again next year. The university has competed 20 times, with competitions in 1989, 1990 and since 1994. It has had a team advance to the world finals 16 times.