A team of three Carnegie Mellon undergraduates, the Dragons, tied for 14th place Feb. 5 at the World Finals of the Association for Computing Machinery's International Collegiate Programming Contest (ICPC) in Harbin, China.

Sophomore Si Young Oh, junior Yun Dong "Stanley" Yeo, and senior Dan Schafer, all computer science majors, completed five of the 11 problems within the allotted five hours, placing them in a 22-team tie for 14th place. Statistically, the team ranked 17th overall. A team from China's Shanghai Jiaotong University took first place, solving seven problems and outscoring second-place Moscow State University.

"We did extremely well," said Greg Kesden, associate teaching professor and one of three Carnegie Mellon coaches. "No team in the Americas- North, South or Central- Africa, the Middle East, the South Pacific, or the Indian sub-continent solved more problems than our students," he noted.

More than 7,000 3-person teams, totalling nearly 22,000 contestants representing 1,931 universities in 82 countries on six continents, competed at 242 ICPC-sanctioned sites to earn one of the 103 slots at the World Finals. The Dragons received active encouragement, as well as financial help, throughout the competitions from the team's sponsor, IMC Financial Markets.

Kesden and fellow coach Eugene Fink, senior systems scientist, won "Outstanding Coach" awards at the finals. Danny Sleator, professor of computer science, also coached the team.