EXETER, NH (March 13, 2009)—A two-member team from Phillips Exeter Academy has won first place in the 2009 Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI) High School Programming Contest, held this week. Team members, senior Amy (Qian) Huang, of Tenafly, NJ, and junior David Xiao, of Brentwood, NH, completed the required nine computing problems of varying difficulty in a four-hour period of the fourth-annual contest. Along with three other challengers, PEA’s team completed all nine problems almost one hour before the contest had officially ended. For their successful efforts, Huang and Xiao received a trophy and a copy of Algorithms in a Nutshell, by George T. Heineman, Gary Pollice and Stanley Selkow.

Both Huang and Xiao are members of Exeter’s Computing Club, and learned of WPI and other computer competitions from the club’s adviser, Computer Science Instructor Brian Sea. Sea, who joined the Computer Science faculty last year, says that after arriving at Exeter, he quickly realized the programming capabilities of some of the students. “I started the Exeter Computing Club for students who had an interest and the ability to compete on this level. Team members were selected for competition based on their problem-solving and critical-thinking abilities; their skill in programming languages; and their desire and ability to attend the contests,” says Sea.

Sea and the team members said the contest was both surreal and exciting. Sea says he’s a little mystified at winning on the first try. “I didn’t expect our team to win anything in its first year in existence,” he says. “Programming competitions are very active, stressful and spontaneous affairs, and I knew our students had never experienced anything like them.”

For Huang, who took only one programming class last year with another teacher, competing was both nerve-racking and exciting. “I was a bit apprehensive before the competition because we only had two people, but . . . we worked really well together,” she says. Once all answers were submitted, Xiao let out a loud “Yes!” as the two quickly headed off to lunch.

Both Huang and Xiao say winning the first programming award for Exeter is exciting and an honor. “I hope our success this year will encourage other (students) who enjoy coding to join the club and participate in computer science competitions as well,” Huang says. 

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