Three ISU students went head to head with the sharpest minds in computer programming at the 27th Annual ACM International Collegiate Programming Contest World Finals in Beverly Hills, Calif., last week.

The competition is organized by the Association for Computing Machinery, a computer industry trade organization, and is sponsored by IBM.

Brett Kail, junior in computer science; Joshua Woods, sophomore in computer science; and Josh Carlson, a December graduate with a degree in computer science, represented Iowa State and tied for 43rd place out of 70 teams from around the world.

The participants were given 10 problems to solve by writing computer code and programs. The goal was to solve the most problems correctly in the least amount of time.

The winning team, Warsaw University, solved nine of the 10 problems.

The ISU team solved three problems. Yan-Bin Jia, assistant professor of computer science and the team’s coach, said the team “achieved the minimum objective.”

Jia said of the 23 U.S. teams at the contest, only nine outperformed the ISU team by solving more problems.

No American universities placed in the top 10.

The team members said they were pleased with the results.

“Obviously, we hoped that we could have solved a few more problems, but I think that we were all satisfied with our performance,” Kail said.

Woods said they could have been quicker at finding silly errors.

“That is where we really lost the majority of our time,” he said.

Kail said the problems were more time consuming than difficult. “I expected the problems to be more difficult to solve on paper rather than being as time consuming to program and debug as they were,” he said.

One of the hardest problems involved a spy that was trying to move through a series of metro stations in the least amount of time.

The team said they wished they would have had more preparation.

“I think our team could have prepared better by practicing more actual programming in addition to the problem-solving practicing we did,” Kail said.

Jia and Kail said some universities have classes just to prepare for the contest.

“Eastern Europe and Asia take it more seriously,” Jia said.

Woods said he would like to see more ISU students participate in the event next year.

“It was truly a well-rounded event and hopefully more people will see the potential rewards that come with success and the event will expand locally,” he said.

The contest took place at Merv’s Beverly Hilton, site of the Golden Globe Awards.

Woods said he enjoyed receiving movie star treatment while staying in Beverly Hills.

“The amount of services available to you at the touch of a button rivals any view of the high life as portrayed in movies,” he said.

The ISU team earned a spot at the World Finals by placing third in the ACM North Central North America contest last fall.

The 70 teams that participated in the World Finals were selected from 3,850 teams from 1,329 universities in 68 countries.