The School hosted a local programming contest in conjunction with UKIEPC on Saturday. Students and staff are pictured tackling problem sets throughout the day. Results and contest standings can be viewed on the UKIEPC Scoreboard. Aetherstore who sponsored the 2014 event, once again offered their backing, we thank them for their continued support.
Images courtesy of Graham Kirby.
After a busy week of induction and module talks, staff and students are pictured during orientation and welcome receptions. Undergraduate students were invited to a gaming session followed by pizza. It’s always rewarding to see so many students and staff welcoming our new 1st year students. Thanks to School president, Maria Kustikova for overseeing events.
Undergraduate gaming and pizza during orientation
Welcome receptions last Wednesday and Thursday evening for our MSc and Honours students, also proved popular and highlight the outstanding student community within the School.
MSc reception September 2015
Honours welcome reception 2015
The Senior Honours students presented their posters and final year software artifacts to staff and students last week. The best poster accolade and associated amazon voucher was presented to Callum Hyland for his poster – Android: Smoking Cessation, behavioural pattern prediction through spatial and temporal modelling. We wish them well with exam revision and look forward to seeing them at June graduation.
The Junior Honours students finalised their team projects last Friday and competed for world domination. This year the project involved implementing a multi-player peer-to-peer world domination game, with AI. We await news of which team dominated the CS world for a time on Friday.
Images courtesy of Lisa Dow and Simone Conte
Congratulations to St Andrews student Simone Ivan Conte, who has been selected as one of the four finalists in the Young Software Engineer of the Year Award 2014.
Simone’s project (pictured below) involved creating a haptic device and API for displaying vector graphics (e.g., trees and graphs) for people with visual disabilities. According to his Senior Honours dissertation supervisor, Dr. Miguel Nacenta
this work demonstrates a lot of ingenuity and has a large potential impact.
The Young Software Engineer of the Year Awards are given for the best undergraduate software projects completed by students studying computer science and software engineering in Scotland.
Simone graduated in Computer Science from St Andrews earlier this year and is currently working for Adobe on a summer internship. In September he will start his doctoral studies, funded by Adobe, with Professor Alan Dearle at St Andrews.
Previous finalists and prize winners have included Thomas Grimes, Alistair Scott, Craig Paul, Angus MacDonald, Ben Catherall and Graeme Bell. Further testament to the quality of talented students graduating from the School of Computer Science.
The winners of this year’s award will be revealed on 2nd October 2014! Fingers crossed.
Four years of hard work, and a sunny day in May sound like prerequisites for our SH BBQ. Some laughter, lots to eat, photographic evidence and the odd game of Chess provide a well deserved opportunity to unwind before the focus shifts to exams, thoughts of graduation, or the next step. We wish them well in their exams.
Some will remain with us for another year and continue their studies on our MSci (hons) Computer Science or MSc Portfolio. We congratulate them on their exceptional choice and look forward to seeing them again in September.
Senior Honours Class of 2014
Our talented final year Computer Science students presented their projects last week. A demonstration and poster session allowed them to discuss the output from a semester of hard work with their peer group and staff.
We wish them every success as they approach graduation, and look forward to celebrating their successful CS journey, next Thursday at the SH BBQ.
Images courtesy of Conrad de Kerckhove.
The St Andrews Programming Competition 2014 is a friendly programming contest organised by the School of Computer Science for students belonging to all levels, coming from any background with any amount of programming experience. Team up with up to 3 members per team, compete for 3 hours by solving a set of programming problems using your favourite programming language and win £200 worth of prizes.
Generally, programming competitions are aimed at the best programmers, this is a first-of-its-kind competition where students from all levels with any amount of programming experience stand a chance to win a prize. Another unique aspect of this competition is that it has also open to members of staff from the School of Computer Science, making this a fun experience and a bonding opportunity for staff and students.
Students can use this opportunity gain valuable exposure to solving quick algorithmic programming questions – of the style that may come up in job interviews, where candidates are required to solve problems on the fly while being observed. Such interview practices are common among many companies nowadays including Google.
For more details and registration visit: http://goo.gl/I78Hyf
Facebook: www.facebook.com/stapc14
Twitter: @stapc14
If you have any questions, please email Shyam on smr20@st-andrews.ac.uk
The event, prizes and refreshments will be sponsored by AetherStore.
Junior and Senior Honours were provided with milk based food products, nibbles and fermented fruit juice during their reception.
Various attempts to look studious were captured for posterity.
