Connecting together

Laura Lucas

Laura Lucas

The room was filled with computers, cords, pizza boxes, cans of Mountain Dew and gamers sporting headphones. On Nov. 4, the Pioneer Room in The Union was home to the Fall LAN (Local Area Network) party.

Ten students participated throughout the course of the day. At 7 p.m., Unreal Tournament 2004, StarCraft and WarCraft 3 had been played and put aside.

“I knew a lot of people who would be here. It is fun to play against friends,” said Michelle McKenzie, a senior computer science and mathematics major.

Each game lasted for about a couple of hours.

The Association for Computing Machinery sponsored the party. According to Andrew Boerema, the president of the club and a senior computer information sciences major said the club just became an officially recognized chapter.

Zachary Plovanic, vice president of ACM and a senior computer science major, said he has been playing games since he can remember.

“Usually these things are a lot of fun. I also think it’s fun to fix technical issues that happen with this type of thing,” said Plovanic.

“There are about 15 to 20 people in the club. We are also sponsoring a programming challenge with a prize of $100. The end date is next semester and the challenge will be over break,” said Boerema.

ACM is also planning a spring LAN party. ACM has meetings Thursdays at 7p.m. in Solberg Hall, Room 102.