A UNT team competed in the Battle of the Brains, an elite international computer programming competition in China that challenges college students to solve complex, real-world problems under extreme deadlines. UNT placed 86th of 103 teams spanning six continents that competed at the Association for Computing Machinery’s International Collegiate Programming Contest, the most prestigious competition of its kind. UNT outranked UT-Austin, which had the only other Texas team.

The contest pits teams of students against eight or more problems with a five-hour deadline in a battle of logic, strategy and mental endurance.

UNT team members are Robert Mitchell Burke of Austin and James Pascoe and Daniel Hooper of McKinney. Coaches are Ryan Garlick, principal lecturer and advisor in the Department of Computer Science and Engineering, and Michael Mohler ('05, '07 M.S.), a computer science and engineering doctoral student. UNT last qualified for the world finals in Canada in 2007.