The University of Central Florida placed third in the nation and 21st in the world in the “World Cup” of computer programming.

UCF landed a trip to the world finals in Ekaterinburg, Russia after taking first place in the Southeast regional contest. The team, comprised of UCF students Travis Meade, Antony Stabile, and Daniel Wasserman were among the 122 teams that competed in the contest from a pool of 8,000 regional teams.

They battled through five-hours of complex problem solving to beat teams such as MIT (#22) and Stanford (#57).

The contest begins with each three-member team receiving up to 12 problems, they have five hours to share one computer and write a computer program for each solution. This year’s questions included reconfiguring a sensor network and finding the ideal location to place surveillance equipment.

The only schools in the nation that beat UCF were New York University and University of Texas Brownsville, respectively.

This is the 25th time UCF has competed in the World Finals since establishing the team in 1982 – one of the most successful records in the nation.