Dateline: Colorado Springs, Colorado

Date:June 04, 2006

Lead: The USA International Computing Olympiad is hosting twelve
domestic and ten international competitors at its week-long
invitational high school programming competition held at Colorado
College in Colorado Springs, Colorado, June 1-8.

Details: The ten foreign competitors hail from Bulgaria, Canada,
China, Poland, Romania, and Russia. USA students are from all areas
of the United States including California, Maryland, Virginia, New
Jersey, North Carolina, Texas, and Rhode Island. Competitors earned
invitations to the USAICO based on their performance on the six
monthly Internet competitions offered by the USA Computing Olympiad.

At the end of the competition, winners will receive medals and
certificates. In addition, the top four USA competitors will be
designated as the team to represent the United States at the
18th International Olympiad in Informatics to be held August 13-20, in
Merrida, Yucatan, Mexico. The IOI invites teams from 75 countries
to compete.

Returning this year to defend their title are are two IOI 2005 USA
Team: Richard ``Matt'' McCutchen of Montgomery Blair High School
in Silver Spring, Maryland; and Senior John Pardon from Durham
Academy in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. Both won gold medals last
year in Poland.

Tim DeBoer and Brenda Chow from IBM joined the group to observe the
competition and challenge the competitors to write Java programs
to control cars in a simulation game called CodeRally.
 
Quotes:        
"Recent press has suggested that the USA is falling behind in
computer science. We're trying to do something about that at the
grass-roots level, and I think we're seeing some pretty good success."
said Dr. Rob Kolstad, USACO's head coach. "Our training program
continues to expand and now includes over 200 hours of challenges
that are shared with all interested parties around the world."

Background: The USA Computing Olympiad (http://www.usaco.org)
administers America's premier pre-college computer programming
competitions. It is a non-profit organization that fosters pre-college
computing by providing opportunities for competition and recognition
in addition enhancing the quality of pre-college computer education.
The USACO achieves these goals internationally, serving more than
33,000 participants in over 90 nations.

The USACO is sponsored by USENIX, SANS, the ACM, and IBM.


Contact: Rob Kolstad, kolstad@ace.delos.com, +1 719-481-6542

Contact: Don Piele piele@uwp.edu    1+262-994-3982

Photos: See the USAICO Diary Page. High resolution photos are available from Don Piele