Results from the 2014 IEEEXtreme 24-hour Programming Contest

12 teams from Penn State Harrisburg competed in the 2014 IEEEXtreme 8.0 programming contest. This world wide contest is open to undergraduate and graduate students. The contest included 2,275 teams worldwide, and more than 6000 participants. The teams from PSH represented the university well. The top four PSH teams included:

First Place Team: TwoStacks
Members: Steven Erb, Jesse Miller, and Pattanapoom Phinjirapong
Ranking in the U.S.: 29th out of 252 teams
Ranking in the World: 237th out of 2,275 teams

Second Place Team: BadWolf
Members: Christopher Cope, Siddharth Dahiya, and Isaac Polinsky
Ranking in the U.S.: 37th out of 252 teams
Ranking in the World: 278th out of 2,275 teams 

Third Place Team: FreeFoodPlease
Members: Tyler Derr, Parth Shah, and Travis Stodter
Ranking in the U.S.: 55th out of 252 teams
Ranking in the World: 381st out of 2,275 teams

Fourth Place Team: MAGSQUAD
Members: Aymen Ben Salah, Melvin Walls, and Gal Yaroslavsky
Ranking in the U.S.: 65th out of 252 teams
Ranking in the World: 427th out of 2,275 teams

Congratulations to all of the participants!  A photo album from the contest is available on the PSH Math and Computer Science facebook page.

Prof. Blum Recognized for his Contribution to IEEEXtreme 8.0 as a Competition Judge

The IEEEXtreme recognized Dr. Blum's contribution to this years competition in the Facebook post below.

Post by IEEEXtreme.

Computer Security Talk this Friday!

The ACM Club is hosting the following presentation this coming Friday, October 3rd. Please consider attending if your schedule permits.

"Hindering Hackers - A Network Security Primer"
Presented by Joe Kraxner, Fishnet Security
Location: 102 EAB (new building)
Time: 6:00 - 8:00PM
**Food Provided**

School of Science, Engineering, and Technology Alumni Reunion and Student Picnic

Please join us for the School of Science, Engineering, and Technology Alumni Reunion and Student Picnic.

Date:  Saturday, October 11, 2014
Location:  Educational Activities Building (EAB)
Penn State Harrisburg
777 West Harrisburg Pike
Middletown, PA 17057

Alumni Reunion 9:00 a.m. - 2:00 p.m.

• Tour new state-of-the-art engineering labs in the EAB and visit other campus landmarks.
• Meet Dr. Rafic Bachnak, director of the School of Science, Engineering, and Technology, and learn more about the school.
• Mentor students and network with professionals.

Continental breakfast and lunch will be provided.

• Student Picnic 11:30 a.m.- 3:30 p.m.
• Panel Discussion with Engineering Professionals
• Lunch Provided
• Games and Activities

To register, visit https://2014ssetreunion.eventbrite.com
or contact the Alumni Office at 717-948-6715 or hbgalumni@psu.edu

Mobile Application Showcase

You are invited to a Mobile App Showcase!  Students in CMPSC 475:  Applications Programming will be demonstrating the Android applications that they have developed.  These applications include an app that controls a telepresence robot, a "Race Ur Face" game, "Couture Mémoire" (a Fashion app), an app to control Christmas lights, an OCR app that converts pictures to text documents, collaboration and teaching apps, and much more.  These apps include a wide range of advanced features including sensor integration, network communication, integration with FaceBook, and animation.  Please stop by and take a look at the great work of Penn State Harrisburg students!

Date: Monday, April 28th.
Time:  6:00 – 8:45 pm.  (You are welcome to stop by anytime during this period to see the demos) 
Location: Room TL 128, in the Science and Technology Building at Penn State Harrisburg.

For more information, please contact Dr. Blum (jjb24@psu.edu).

Math and Computer Science Students Honored at 2014 Student Awards Ceremony

Congratulations to Joshua Lease, Mohammad Adi, and Candace Heller, who were honored at the 2014 Student Awards Ceremony. Joshua Lease received the Computer Science Outstanding Undergraduate Student Award. Mohammad Adi received the Computer Science Outstanding Graduate Student Award. Candace Heller received the Mathematics Outstanding Student Award.

Talk: Mind of a Conman, April 4, 2014

You are invited to the talk "Mind of a Conman," on April 4.  The speaker is Chris Hadnagy, a professional Social Engineer and author of  “Social Engineering: The Art of Human Hacking” and “Unmasking the Social Engineer: The Human Element of Security.”   The talk is sponsored by the Penn State Harrisburg ACM Student Chapter.  Please see the seminar flyer for more information.

Penn State Harrisburg Seminar Series

You are invited to the talk "Introduction to the Calculus of Variations and Optimal Control," to be given by Dr. Ilya Shvartsman, Associate Professor of Mathematics.  The talk will be held on Wednesday, March 19th from 12 noon - 1:30 pm in the Gallery Lounge, Olmsted Building.

Academic Perspectives on Current Events: Cybersecurity

Penn State Harrisburg will host an Academic Perspectives on Current Events discussion on cybersecurity on Wednesday, March 5, from noon to 1:30 p.m. in the Olmsted Building Gallery Lounge. The event is moderated by Dr. Jeremy Blum, associate professor of computer science.  Panelists include:

• Dr. Linda Null, associate professor of computer science
• Gregory Madden, associate director of information technology services
• Russell Houseknecht, III, digital forensics examiner, Pennsylvania State Police and adjunct professor, Penn State Harrisburg

The event is free and open to faculty, staff, students, and the public.  For more information, please contact Anton Mulder at aum28@psu.edu. 

Blum research paper selected among decade’s top ten in the IEEE ITS Journal

From the Penn State Harrisburg News Release:

A research paper by Dr. Jeremy Blum, associate professor of computer science, was recently selected as a Top 10 Research Paper from the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE )Transactions on Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS) for the decade from 2000-2009.

The paper, “Challenges of Intervehicle Ad Hoc Networks," was co-authored by Dr. Lance Hoffman and Dr. Azim Eskandarian, and detailed the security and scalability challenges faced by wireless vehicle-to-vehicle networks.

The IEEE Intelligent Transportation System Society appointed a group of experts to select the best papers from 2000-2009, to celebrate the 10th anniversary of the transactions, which are the official journals of the IEEITS Society. Statistical and social network analysis were used to choose the papers with the highest impact that were published in the transactions.  The results were announced in the September 2013.

“I am very honored and humbled to have had our paper selected for this honor,” said Dr. Blum, “especially out of the many that have been published in the transactions over this decade.” 

Link to the Announcement in the IEEE Transactions on Intelligent Transportation Systems

Penn State Harrisburg Team Programming Team Places 120th in the World (out of 1838) and 17th in the USA (out of 251)

The IEEEXtreme 7.0 Programming Contest is 24-hour programming contest, which was held on October 26, 2013.  More than 1,800 teams competed in this worldwide contest, including more than 250 teams from the United States. 

The official results, which were just released, show that the Penn State Harrisburg team of Austin Barket, Isaac Polinsky, and Siddharth Dahiya placed 120th in the world, and 17th in the USA.  Congratulations!

Penn State Harrisburg teams have competed in the IEEEXtreme contest for the previous three years.  This year, Penn State Harrisburg fielded thirteen teams, each comprised of three undergraduate or graduate students.

The official results for the IEEEXtreme contest can be viewed at:http://www.ieee.org/membership_services/membership/students/competitions/xtreme/index.html

In addition to hearty congratulations for all of the participants, we would also like to thank the proctors:  Prof. Julie Lobur, Dr. Omar El Ariss, and Dr. Jeremy Blum.

Robotics Competition Sponsored by Penn State Harrisburg and HACC is featured in the Patriot News

The South Central PA Robotics Competition was covered in the Patriot News.  Thank you to the Computer Science students, who served as mentors and judges for the competition, including Christopher Cope, Siddharth Dahiya, Tyler Derr, Kevin Joseph, Viplav Patel, and Isaac Polinsky.

http://www.pennlive.com/midstate/index.ssf/2013/11/results_are_in_for_todays_sout.html

For more information about the contest, please see the contest website.

Penn State Harrisburg Students Mentor Local High School Students for Robotics Competition

Penn State CS students Tyler Derr and Siddharth Dahiya are mentoring Middletown Area High School (MAHS) students in preparation for the upcoming South Central Pennsylvania Robotics Competition. As described in the MAHS blog post below, this competition is sponsored by Penn State Harrisburg, HACC, and local high schools. The event has also received support from the IEEE and local industry.

Robots Invade MAHS

More information about the Robotics Competition can be found on the competition website.

IEEEXtreme 7.0

From 8 pm October 25th through 8 pm October 26th, teams from Penn State Harrisburg competed in the IEEEXtreme 7.0, a 24-hour programming contest.  The Penn State Harrisburg teams included 39 students in 13 teams, who competed against almost 1700 teams in this global competition.

Photos from the competition can be viewed on the PSH Math and Computer Science Facebook page.

Career Development Workshop Recap

On October 4, the ACM Student Chapter at Penn State Harrisburg organized a Career Development Workshop. Four recent graduates shared their experiences with the job search and interviewing process. The presenters were Nazia Latif from Intel, Mandeep Singh from Microsoft, Ben Leto with IBM, and Peter Okosun from Intel.

Pictures from the event are available on the PSH Math & Computer Science Facebook Page.