A team of Hopkins computer science students scored a first-place win in the recent Mid-Atlantic regional programming contest sponsored by the Association for Computing Machinery.

The competition requires students to write programs to solve a series of demanding computer problems within a five-hour time limit. A Hopkins team called Optimus Prime, one of two entered by the university, placed first among 143 teams from universities throughout the region, including Virginia Tech, Duke and the University of Maryland, College Park.

The winning team consisted of Adam Hunter, a doctoral student from Jacksonville, Fla.; James Keiger, a senior from Mendham, N.J., and Phil Lawton, a senior from Frederick, Md. Hunter and Lawton were members of a Hopkins team that competed last spring in the world finals of this contest, held in The Netherlands.

The new team earned the right to compete in next spring's world finals in Orlando, Fla.

Their coach, Scott F. Smith, was pleased with the team's performance in the regional competition. "We beat some really great teams," said Smith, a professor in the Department of Computer Science. "We didn't have one single superstar on this team. We had three great students who all have extraordinary skills. Because of that, we think we'll have a good shot in the international competition."

For the first time, Hopkins served as one of the eight host locations for the Mid-Atlantic regional competition.