by Bridget Cook ’14

It’s 2:10 on a Tuesday afternoon, and while other students scurry to their buses, sports practices  and after-school meetings, members of the Computer Science club rush to A107 to diligently work through problems and master the programming languages which they hope will lead them to future victories in competitions.

The main focus of the club is working as a team to find solutions to computer logic problems and to practice for upcoming competitions. Group members enjoy assisting each other with solving these problems in the club’s relaxed setting. “I like helping people understand things, because it helps me to see what I understand as I explain things,” said senior Jon Egeland, club president.

The group regularly works with artificial languages created to communicate instructions to a computer. Java and C++ are the most commonly used, with some members choosing to specialize in other languages such as Python, Lua and Ruby. In a contest setting, participants usually operate in teams of four, and each team is supplied a series of problems that may take several hours to solve. The team that can complete the most problems in the time allotted wins.

Though the club is small, with only about eight to 10 regular members, size doesn’t restrict the group’s performance, and members regularly place well in contests. On February 23, members of the club impressed at the prestigious University of Maryland High School Programming Contest. “We placed sixth, which is the best we’ve ever done at that competition,” commented Egeland. Another significant win was a fourth place victory by a three-person team of seniors Jon Egeland, Darshan Shah and Craig Weiss at a March 23 contest at the University of Virginia.

Many of the top programmers are seniors, who plan to continue computer programming after high school. Egeland will pursue computer science at Purdue University, and a majority of the other members plan computer science-based careers. As for the future of the club, returning members are counting on underclassmen to join and fill the gaps left by seniors. “We need the next generation to step up and continue our strong tradition,” says sponsor John Way.