2020 Competition Rules

The 2020 Programming Competition Rules

Each team will be issued a login ID and password for 2 computers in the lab they have been assigned to. A designated practice time in the morning for team members with their advisors will allow participants to become familiar with the environment. Practice submissions will be reviewed by scorers and feedback provided if necessary.

The competition consists of a set of programming problems of varying complexity. The team should strive to correctly solve as many problems as possible, as quickly as possible. We encourage a divide and conquer approach so that the entire team does not work on one problem at a time, but divide their attention. We hope the range of complexity will help teams “warm up and gain confidence” before tackling more challenging problems.

1. There will be exactly two and a half hours to work on the solutions.
2. Only one team submission per problem will be allowed as judges will evaluate submissions throughout the competition.
3. Correctness of a solution will be based on the program producing the correct output for a set of input that the judges will use to test the program. There is no partial credit.
4. All problems will include some recommended sample data, but additional test data will be used during judging.
5. Teams will be given examples of input and output but will not be given the input the judges will use.
6. Grading will be based on the number of correct solutions submitted by a team.
7. Contest judges will declare a solution incorrect if it does not execute in less than 1 minute.
8. Grading of submissions is done automatically. Any deviation in output, including any extra characters and/or whitespace will cause the submission to be rejected. This includes an extra ‘return’/newline character or space at the end of output. Team members should familiarize themselves with output methods to avoid unwanted frustration during the competition.
9. Input will be received from the keyboard, and output will be sent to the terminal window.
10. Should a tie impact the determination of first, second or third place, a decision will be made based on the time taken (as measured by time between start of contest to the submission time). For this reason, teams should submit their problems as soon as they have verified it through thorough testing.
11. Teams may not accept assistance or advice from anyone not authorized to provide such assistance. No persons other than judges and host staff can address questions or provide assistance.
12. Advisors/Coaches will not be present in the lab during the afternoon contest time.
13. Faculty and student host staff will be available in the labs during the competition. Host staff will answer questions concerning system related queries and contest procedures but will not answer any questions regarding logic, language syntax or problem interpretation.
14. Should a team communicate the need for clarification of a problem statement, a member of the hosting staff will relay it to judges. If it is determined that clarification of a problem is necessary, that clarification will be issued to all teams. If it is determined that no clarification is necessary, that response will only be made to the team that requested it.