I would like to invite anyone who has successfully completed Data Structures
(3310 or 3510) consider participation on this year's student programming 
team.  We will be sending at least one team of three students to participate 
in this year's ACM Mid-Atlantic Regional Programming Competition, which will 
be held October 28 at several sites, but we will participate at Duke 
University in Durham, NC.  This will be the thirteenth consecutive year that 
we've had at least one team entered and we regularly finish in the top half
with our two strongest finishes being 17th out of 139 teams in 2000 and 14th
out of 148 (including site winner) in 2002.

The format of the contest is that each team has one machine and their goal is
to "solve" as many problems as possible in five hours where the definition of
solve is to submit a computer program that produces the correct answer on all
the judges test cases.  Throughout the semester I will help the students prepare
for the contest by discussing sample problems from past contests that
illustrate a variety of algorithmic techniques for solving problems that
students are not normally exposed to during their regular classes.  So even if
you don't actually participate on contest day, you still could learn about a
variety of useful algorithmic problem-solving techniques.

So if you like programming, and you like problem-solving, please send me email 
(rws@cs.ecu.edu) or stop by and see me in my office, Sci-Tech C-117, or 
call me (328-9687)

Thanks,

Ronnie Smith