Thirteen students with 13 beautiful images and met on December 10th to compete in the annual Teapot Rendering Competition. The competition, which is open to all students who have taken the Ray Tracing for Rendering (CS 6620) course and have written their own rendering software from scratch are allowed to compete. Students present their original scenes rendered with their own software, commemorating the famous Utah Teapot with dazzling visuals!

The rules of the competition are simple: the scenes must be original, they must include at least one visible Utah Teapot model, and the images must be rendered using student’s software. Students entering the competition are permitted to work with other individuals for preparing their scenes and the related artwork, but they must write the rendering software themselves.
This marks the 8th year of the competition, which is organized by Dr. Cem Yuksel.

Link to the winners 2019 Winners

Vinu Joseph, a fifth year PhD student working with Ganesh Gopalakrishnan was selected as a recipient of the 2020-2021 NVIDIA Graduate Fellowship. The prestigious award provides funding to help further Vinu’s research. He was one of 5 students selected this year.

The NVIDIA Graduate Fellowship Program now provides funding in the amount of up to $50,000 per award to PhD students who are researching topics that will lead to major advances in the graphics and high-performance computing industries, and are investigating innovative ways of leveraging the power of the GPU.

NVIDIA may select up to ten students each year who have the talent, aptitude and initiative to work closely with us early in their careers. Recipients not only receive crucial funding for their research, but are able to conduct groundbreaking work with access to NVIDIA products, technology and some of the most talented minds in the field.

Mary Hall a professor in the U’s School of Computing was named an 2020 IEEE Fellow and recognized for her contributions to compiler optimization and performance tuning.
The IEEE Grade of Fellow is conferred by the IEEE Board of Directors upon a person with an outstanding record of accomplishments in any of the IEEE fields of interest. The total number selected in any one year cannot exceed one-tenth of one- percent of the total voting membership. IEEE Fellow is the highest grade of membership and is recognized by the technical community as a prestigious honor and an important career achievement.
The IEEE is the world’s leading professional organization for advancing technology for humanity. Through its 400,000 members in 160 countries, the organization is a leading authority on a wide variety of areas ranging from aerospace systems, computers and telecommunications to biomedical engineering, electric power and consumer electronics.

The team, “Utah Hydrogen,” beat 71 other teams in the U.S. and Canada to win the Rocky Mountain Regional of the Intercollegiate Programming Contest.

The team comprised of SoC undergraduates Igor Durovic, Oliver Flatt, and Sam Zachary came from behind in the last hour to edge out five strong teams from the Universities of Alberta, Calgary, and Lethbridge to win the regional. The School of Computing team solved 9 of the 11 problems during the five-hour competition; five teams solved 8, two teams solved 7, and three teams solved 6.

By winning the regional, Igor, Oliver, and Sam have qualified for both the ICPC North American Championship (in Atlanta in February) and the ICPC World Finals (in Moscow in June).

Five other teams from the University of Utah competed solving between two and five problems each.

The Rocky Mountain Regional of the Intercollegiate Programming Contest took place October 26th at sites in Utah, Arizona, Colorado, Montana, and Alberta.

The International Collegiate Programming Contest (ICPC) is an algorithmic programming contest for college students. Teams of three, representing their university, work to solve the most real-world problems, fostering collaboration, creativity, innovation, and the ability to perform under pressure. Through training and competition, teams challenge each other to raise the bar on the possible. Quite simply, it is the oldest, largest, and most prestigious programming contest in the world.

PHOTO: Sam Zachary and Oliver Flatt (not pictured: Igor Durovic)