University of Tartu students stand out at Nordic Collegiate Programming Contest

Three student teams from the University of Tartu took part in the Nordic Collegiate Programming Contest (NCPC) on 4 October, where a total of 173 teams from across the Nordic and Baltic countries competed in the main ICPC category.

The best result among the Estonian teams was achieved by “Setter Jaani”, who placed 10th overall. The team consisted of Jaagup Tamme, Andres Alumets and Kregor Ööbik, who successfully solved eight out of eleven problems. “According to the rules, each team has only one computer between three participants, which means that in addition to programming skills, the competition also tests their teamwork and ability to communicate their ideas clearly,” said the University of Tartu’s organiser of the competition, Professor of Artificial Intelligence Meelis Kull.

Strong results were also achieved by the University of Tartu teams “ARM64 chip” (Markus Post, Andreas Lindsalu and Rocco Liiva), who placed 32nd, and “Depth-First” (Madis Roosma, Hikmat Azimzade and Hans Gustav Kõljalg), who finished in 34th place. Both teams successfully solved six problems – the same as Tallinn University of Technology’s best-performing team “Kolm Siimu”, which placed 38th.

NCPC is one of the most important programming competitions in the Nordic and Baltic region and is part of the global International Collegiate Programming Contest (ICPC) series. A strong performance in this contest gives the best teams the chance to qualify for the Northwestern Europe Regional Contest (NWERC), taking place 28–30 November at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology in Germany. The top teams from NWERC will advance to the European finals and from there to the world’s most prestigious student programming competition — the ICPC World Finals.