University teams pitted against each other, competing for the glory of their school. This scenario sounds familiar, but instead of taking place on a field, a recent competition involved screens and keyboards.
The Code Wars, hosted by software company Windward of Boulder, Colo., took place in February, but its gaining attention for how well computer science departments from Colorado did.
In the Code Wars, students work in teams to create an artificial intelligent agent to resolve a certain problem. This year students needed to write an algorithm that instructed a limo driver to pick up various high-profile software CEOs and take them to different companies within the virtual world of Windwardopolis.
A Colorado State Universityprogramming team –the first time they competed- won first place at this year’s Code War. Another CSU team won fourth place, while a team from the Colorado School of Minescame in seventh.
The standings promptedDavid Thielen, the founder of Windward Studios to call CSU and Mines “hidden gems” in a recent Huffington Post article, and rank CSU the 7th best computer science school in the world.
This year’s Code Wars was the second of its kind hosted by Windward. Its sponsors include Microsoft, Hewlett-Packard, JetBrains, and Morgan Stanley.
In recognition of the students’ achievements, HP donated its best selling laptops to the top three teams of the competition including their faculty advisors.
