Stellenbosch University sent 4 teams of 5 students to participate in the heats of the Standard Bank IT challenge at UWC on 8 March 2008. The only university to have more than one team solve at least one problem this year was UCT (4 teams), with 5 other universities, including Stellenbosch, each having one team solving a problem. This year’s successful team (picture on the right) consisted of last year’s finalists from Stellenbosch University (Dirk-B Coetzee, Herman Schaaf, Ralf Kistner and Conrad Hofmeyr) who are now second year students studying Electrical and Electronic Engineering with Computer Science, as well as a first-year member, Melissa Munnik, who is also studying Engineering.
The team did the university proud, obtaining 3 solutions and finishing second nationwide in the heats. Last year they finished 7th behind six teams from UCT, so this result is very encouraging indeed.
The team will now represent the university at a final held at the Standard Bank head offices in Johannesburg in April.
More pictures can be found by clicking on the image.