New Zealand’s team of young computer programmers recently came home with two bronze medals from the annual International Olympiad of Informatics (IOI).

Tony Sun, from Auckland Grammar, and Logan Glasson, formerly of Burnside High School, received bronze medals at the competition’s closing ceremony, repeating the bronze medal performances they achieved in 2012.

The two were joined by team mates Alan Ansell, from New Plymouth Boys’ High School, and Byung Hoon Cho, also from Auckland Grammar, at the world’s premier high school programming competition held in Brisbane in July.

The competition is split over two days, and, with each competition session lasting five hours, the competitors had to demonstrate their skills in problem solving, design of algorithms and data structures, programming and testing.

Margot Phillipps, director of the NZ Olympiad in Informatics, says this year's competition was particularly tough.

"Our team acquitted themselves extremely well, winning two very high bronze awards. Although the competition did not go as smoothly as expected, the Kiwi boys represented the country with a maturity well beyond their years."

Bronze medallist Glasson, who also gained bronze in 2012, 2011, and 2010, will travel to Ontario, Canada this month to take up the Mike & Ophelia Lazaridis Olympiad Scholarship at Waterloo University. Only medallists of the IOI and the IMO (International Mathematics Olympiad) are eligible to apply for this scholarship.

The IOI features more than 300 of the world's top computer science high school students who are selected through national computing contests. Over 250,000 young people from over 80 countries compete each year to represent their country at the IOI.