Vanderbilt Red earned first-place honors at MTSU Nov. 5 in the 36th annual Association for Computing Machinery Mid-Central USA Programming Contest in the “battle of the brains” regional.

The Vandy trio of Krzysztof Zienkiewicz, Zach McCormick and Richard Williams solved five problems during the five-hour contest, which was held in Kirksey Old Main. Unofficially, Vanderbilt placed eighth overall in the full 150-team Mid-Central region, which includes Missouri, Arkansas, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky and Tennessee.

Finishing second was the University of Tennessee at Knoxville. Rounding out the top five were MTSU Blueraider #1, East Tennessee State University Team Edward and ETSU’s The Toasters. The first five places all solved five problems, but Vanderbilt Red earned the title on tiebreakers.

Blueraider #1 unofficially placed 22nd in the region. Blueraider #1 team members included graduate student Michael Chasteen of Smyrna, Tenn.; senior Matthew Houglum of Christiana, Tenn.; and senior Nathan Reale of Franklin, Tenn. They captured the Mid-Central regional held at Tennessee Tech in 2010.

Blueraider #2, which finished sixth this year, included junior Daniel Cowan of Mt. Juliet, Tenn.;  senior Anthony Mills of Murfreesboro; and grad student Thomas Richards of Germantown, Tenn.

Twenty-five teams from nine universities competed in the ACM Mid-Central at MTSU. Other schools represented included Belmont, Tennessee Tech, Tennessee State, Maryville College and the University of North Alabama.

— Randy Weiler (Randy.Weiler@mtsu.edu)