Eight computer programming students went up against Stanford University, UC Berkeley and other four-year schools last month in the Pacific Northwest Regional Competition at Stanford.

DVC was the only community college from the Northwest to do so.

The students volunteered from instructors Carol Lokke and Robert Burns’ classes, because, for the first time, DVC is without a computer science club.

The first team, the Inquirers, included Joseph Cranmer, Jonathan DiJaili, Faraz Tavakoli and Charles Mack as the alternate. The Inquirers placed 72nd out of 85 teams.

The second team, the Vikings, included Andhika Joe, Hilfi Alkaf, John Watson, and Meng Zhang as the alternate. The Vikings placed 67th out of 85 teams.

Both teams completed two of 10 programs posed in the six-hour competition. The top team, Stanford Red, was the only team to complete eight of the 10.

“This is an actual application of everything you’ve learned and seeing how you can effectively use it,” said programmer Jonathan Dijaili. “It’s definitely a great way to judge how good of a programmer you are.”

While the teams did not place as well as prior DVC teams, their instructors were proud of how well they did on such short notice.

“They did an outstanding job,” Lokke said.