Li and Wei To Attend Computer Science Camp

Two Exonians, senior Ray Li and prep Alex Wei have been selected to attend the prestigious United States of America Computing Olympiad (USACO) summer training camp, based on their outstanding performance on various computer science contests throughout the 2012-2013 season.A total of 24 students were selected from across the nation to attend this camp, which will be held at Clemson University. Upon arrival, the students will be challenged by advanced instructional material, according to the USACO website. The top four finalists will proceed to represent USA at the 2013 International Olympiad in Informatics in Brismark, Australia.Li and Wei’s selection to attend the USACO summer training camp marks them as two of the top high school coders in the country, according to computer science instructor Sean Campbell. "It is a high honor, in my opinion, that PEA is represented by two students there," Campbell said. "Though I cannot claim credit for their success, it does make me proud to be part of a school where we have computer science students of this caliber."Campbell described the USACO competition problems as quite challenging but helpful for high school programmers. "One of my top students from my previous school trained online with USACO problems and earned the UIL state (Texas) championship the following year from among thousands of competitors," he said.Li, who hopes to major in math and computer science in college, was first introduced to programming contests by a friend of his in middle school, where he used to participate in math competitions. Since then, Li has attended the USACO training program for the past three summers, hoping to represent the United States at the International Olympiad in Informatics (IOI), but was never selected.He was optimistic about the summer training session this year and expressed his hope in earning a spot on the national team this year. "This is my last year, so I’m trying to make the team this year by doing well on the tests that they give us at the camp," he said. "In general, the idea of programming contests is to train students not only programming skills but problem solving ability, which is very useful anywhere, regardless of what I'm going to be in the future, no matter what job I have.""Ray is really good at thinking up computer science algorithms," senior Daniel Clemson said. "Coming up with the best algorithms is what programming contests are mostly about, so while I feel happy for him, it’s no big surprise that he made the USACO camp this summer as well."Wei was first introduced to the USACO competitions earlier in the year by Li. "Ray helped me get started with C++, which is the language one uses in the competitions," Wei said. "He is an amazing teacher and has helped a lot with my understanding of computer science."In preparation for the competition, Wei has been solving problems and learning algorithms that will be featured in the tests at the camp. "I also participate in contests on other websites, such as Codeforces," Wei said. "Ray has taught me some algorithms and data structures as well. I have also done many problems from the USACO training pages."Campbell, who taught Wei in the CSC420: Data Structures and Algorithms class this past winter, praised Wei’s extraordinary ability in creating programs and algorithms. "His design project for the course was an artificial intelligence that played an online Tetris game in real time. The whole class was impressed, myself included, with the result," Campbell said. "He has an amazing intellect and a knack for solving tough problems, and I am not at all surprised that he was selected for this camp."