A team from Harvard nabbed the third spot in a prestigious regional computer science competition known as the “Battle of the Brains” held this past Saturday at the Rochester Institute of Technology.

The team from the Harvard Computing Contest Club (also known as HC^3) finished behind competitors from long-standing rival MIT and Binghamton University in the regional round of the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM)’s International Collegiate Programming Contest.

The 12 teams in the contest were given eight problems to solve within five hours, with the final score based on the number correct and the time it took to solve them.

The teams had to come up with solutions to real world problems through the creation of computer programs. One example from this year was quantitatively ranking Supreme Court candidates based on how closely the candidates’ beliefs align with those of President Bush.

“Computer science people have their own sense of humor,” said Yan Zhang ’07, one of the three members of the HC^3 squad, nicknamed “Team Ad Hoc.” According to Zhang, the “whimsical and playful” problems reflected this humor.

The contest organizers emphasized the breadth of material covered.

“Tackling these problems is equivalent to completing a semester’s worth of computer programming in one afternoon!” declared the contest’s release.

Although the Harvard participants said the contest, which is sponsored by IBM, is well known in the field, they added that they were motivated primarily by an interest in the subject matter.

Team member Sasha Rush ’07, who competed last year as well, described the experience as “intense.” He added, “I find the problems pretty interesting. It’s a really good feeling when you get one.”

Rush also said he enjoyed competing in a team setting. “It’s a lot more fun than working on programs, sitting alone at your computer,” he said.

Each fall, HC^3 holds individual tryouts to choose team members. The club selects two teams of three undergraduates each to compete in a preliminary competition. The better of these two teams goes on to compete in the regional contest.

Zhang said that few people at Harvard seemed to be aware of the competition, noting that only about 10 people tried out this year. He encouraged more people to try out for the team, saying the competition has a “broader appeal” than to just computer science concentrators.

Both Zhang and Rush stressed that this is a contest based more on problem-solving than advanced knowledge of computer science. “It’s meant to be a fun time,” Zhang said.

Rush admitted to being “disappointed” by the third-place finish, noting the team had hoped to improve on Harvard’s third place ranking last year. Two years ago, Harvard’s team bested MIT in the regional competition and advanced to the World Finals.

Even so, Zhang noted that it was “a very close competition.” Second place Binghamton answered the same number of problems correctly as Harvard, beating the Harvard team only by finishing slightly faster.

Depending upon how the final rankings work out, Harvard still stands a chance of earning a wild card spot in the World Finals, to be held in San Antonio, Texas this spring.