A team of first year students become champions of competitive programming in Madrid.

Last weekend took place the VIII Edition of ‘Ada Byron’, a competitive programming tournament that brought together teams from the 6 public universities of Madrid at the UPM campus.

In a festive atmosphere, as is usually the case in these meetings, one of the first-year teams competing for the URJC took first place in its category, something that happens for the first time since the university started participating in this contest.

“We came first in the first-year category, it is the first time we have won. It’s an achievement,” says Jesús Sánchez-Oro, professor at the ETSII and coordinator of the Competitive Programming group at the URJC.

The CEAN team, which is the name of the winners’ group, is made up of three students in the 1st year of the degree in Cybersecurity Engineering: Marcelino Siles Rubia, Adán El Yaacoubi Ruano and Iván Sánchez Alvar.

Improvement at all levels

In addition to the milestone of being the first in one of the competitions, the URJC teams have improved in all categories achieving second, third and fourth place in the second year, while the 4th year team, placed ninth in their competition.

“All the teams have improved, the first year teams have won and, for example, the second year teams have been very good with their results. All the URJC teams have been at least in the middle of the table,” explains Sánchez-Oro.

Growing interest

There is growing interest in competitive programming at the URJC, “the group already has more than 200 students who train with us,” explains the professor. In addition, the teams are coached by doctoral students from the GRAFO group and participants who have competed in competitive programming world championships.

This interest and motivation of the students has led to the resumption of an initiative to create a Competitive Programming student association that was started last year.

The next important event is the SWERC, an international competition that pits universities from Southwest Europe and other parts of the continent against each other. This time it will be held in Milan at the end of April and is a challenge for the group “it is a very competitive and complex competition,” explains Sánchez-Oro. The professor adds that, in this competition “to be in the middle of the table would be a very important achievement. There are many universities that have this professionalized, but this is not our case”.

Undoubtedly an opportunity for URJC students to show their skills in this discipline outside our borders and to continue overcoming challenges.