IBM Master the Mainframe Contest

The IBM Academic Initiative System z and the IBM Master the Mainframe Contest Team would like to thank all of the students and educators who contributed to making the 2006 IBM Master the Mainframe Contest a success. With 1,085 students registering to compete from 177 schools across the U.S. and Canada, the field was especially competitive this year.

Part 3 winners

The competition in Part 3 this year was extraordinarily tough. A special congratulations to all of the students who were talented (and brave!) enough to tackle the very difficult Part 3 challenges, for which they were given their own individual z/OS systems. This year's Part 3 winners:

1st place: Michael Jason Cade, Texas State University
2nd place: Edward Pluta, University of Nebraska at Omaha
3rd place: Alain Vandendorpe, Queen's University, Ontario
4th place: Scott Vetter, Marist College, New York
5th place: Christian McArthur, Texas State University

Honorable mention:
John Dowd, Northeastern University, Massachusetts
Kenfrey Mbuba, North Dakota State University
David Neuburger, Northeastern Illinois University
Majdi Razick, Farmingdale State University, New York
Michael Tuell, West Virginia University at Parkersburg

All of these students have demonstrated exceptional intelligence, perseverance and, of course, exemplary mainframe skills. Congratulations on all of your remarkable efforts and achievements!

Part 2 winners

The first twenty-five students to blaze through the Part 2 challenges 100% correctly (a very impressive feat!) were:

• Chris Barber, Northern Illinois University
• Erik Brynjolfsson, Northern Illinois University
• Aaron Chernosky, Houston Community College, Texas
• Feliciano Delgado, Northeastern Illinois University
• Austen Dicken, North Dakota State University
• Chris Evans, University of Texas at Dallas
• Eric Helser, Northern Illinois University
• Bruce Howell, University of Maryland, Baltimore County
• Patricia Jablonski, Clarkson University, New York
• Ethan Jud, Clarkson University, New York
• Darin Kelkhoff, University of Missouri, St. Louis
• Zhangbo Liu, University of British Columbia
• Jason Loew, SUNY Binghamton
• Doug Morgan, Ohio University
• Chris Peterman, Clarkson University, New York
• Bryan Pietrzyk, Michigan State University
• Tim Pinkawa, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
• Edward Pluta, University of Nebraska at Omaha
• Kenneth Rahn, Jr., University of Rhode Island
• Joshua Roys, Michigan State University
• Alain Vandendorpe, Queen's University, Ontario
• Jason Walsh, Memorial University of Newfoundland
• Junjjie Wang, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, New York
• Toby Youngberg, Brigham Young University, Idaho
• Brian Zuk, University of New Haven, Connecticut

Part 1 winners

Over 600 students successfully completed the Part 1 challenges to win a Master the Mainframe T-shirt. Congratulations to all of the Part 1 winners! We hope you are enjoying your new threads (as well as your new knowledge of z/OS and ISPF).

Photo submissions

Thanks to all of the students who sent in their very creative photos of themselves and their new Master the Mainframe T-shirts. We hope you enjoy this photo montage on YouTube, set to an original score just for the contest, written and performed by our team's own Jeff Bisti.

The winner of an iPod for the best submitted photo is:

Derwin "Boby" Lugo, Pace University

Ian Young, Grinnell College

Future contests

Keep your eyes peeled for future Master the Mainframe Contests in various geographies worldwide. Best of luck if you choose to compete!