Three students have taken first place in a computer competition which required teams to write code for 24 hours straight.

The world-wide IEEEXtreme competition sees teams of university students compete to complete a series of programming problems, more points are awarded depending on the difficulty of the coding challenges.

It is held simultaneously for a 24 hour period around the world.

The ‘RainbowDash’ team from the Australian National University (ANU) took first place in the Australian rankings, scoring an incredible 19th worldwide.

“The challenge of solving algorithm problems quickly and efficiently, and the opportunities for teamwork made IEEEXtreme 2013 a very memorable event,” RainbowDasher Jonathan Franzi said.

“Tessa and Andrew were great teammates, and I hope to compete in a team with them again,” he said of fellow victorious programmers Teresa Bradbury and Andrew Donnellan.

Second place went to another threateningly-named team from ANU; ‘TwilightSparkle’.

Competition supervisor Uwe Zimmer said the victory was excellent, but as ever the experience and skills built on the way were the real benefits.

“It was a pleasure to see our student teams endure an international programming marathon with competence and elegance,” Zimmer said.

“Team communication was not only obviously enjoyable but also highly effective.

“Our students played their multi-lingual programming skills perfectly which gave them a clear edge over the international competition – and a good time while programming.”

The global grand prize winner was the ‘cofrades’ team from Universidad Nacional de Ingenieria of Peru. They will receive an expenses-paid trip to an IEEE conference of their choice anywhere around the world.