A Big Weekend

Last weekend held two significant events for us: a programming competition and a research symposium.

Our Programming Team competed at the annual Dickinson contest and made us proud! The first time, consisting of Philip Diffenderfer, Matthew Hydock, Casey Boone solved four problems and came in second overall. Our second team of Elizabeth Jones and Missy Lewis solved three problems, too. Our team is developing a lot of depth. Click to see the results.

I also had the privilege of taking six of our students the SJU's Sigma Chi Research Symposium to present their grant-funded or senior research. Senior research projects were presented by Matthew Gilbert, Brandon Wilson, Justin DeVage, Wesley Gibson, and Seth Theilemann. Sarah Joseph presented the grant-funded research she and Logan Kennedy have been working on.

PACISE 2008

The Programming Team just returned from this year's trip to the PACISE programming competition. While we didn't place, our top team solve 2 3/4 problems (ask them how that makes any sense!) and we think we're much more prepared for the upcoming contest at Dickinson. Here's a team photo including our mascot:



from left to right: Sarah Joseph, Nathasha Gunasekara (holding Fluffy), Elizabeth Jones, Phil Diffenderfer, Logan Kennedy, and Casey Boone.

Versatile Seminar

Yesterday, two developers from Versatile Systems, Ryan Bohn (who is an alum of our program and a member of our Industrial Advisory Council) and Bill Kratzer gave a very useful seminar which was highly reviewed by those who attended.



It was titled "Working in Software Development After College... a.k.a. A Day
in the Life at Versatile Systems".

And here is its abstract:

Bill Kratzer and Ryan Bohn love their jobs. They work for a small to
mid-sized software and consulting company in Central Pennsylvania where
they solve really hard problems and are always in the business of trying
to build and deploy software for their ever-demanding customers. Bill
and Ryan will share with students what they do every day, what they
love/hate about their jobs, what things they do well/not-so-well, what
software technologies are gaining steam, and what things they look for
in college students who are looking jobs.

We think seminars like these are very valuable for our students and we'd welcome similar presentations from other industrial partners.

Deadlock in Legos

Rob Koch was playing with Legos in the Zoid and came up with these to ways of animating properties associated with deadlock.





One shows the conditions causing deadlock (circular wait, non-preemption, mutual exclusion, and hold and wait) while the other shows each of those conditions being prevented. Can you tell which is which?