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2008 NJIT High School Programming Contest

Contest Rules and Information

 

0. Projected Schedule

See the schedule for the day of the contest.

 

1. Team Formation

In order to facilitate as many schools as possible and given certain limitations of NJIT resources, schools wishing to participate must inform NJIT as soon as possible but not later than [Deadline 1]. 

Registration (online)	January 14, 2008	Deadline 1
Special requests	February 14, 2008	Deadline 2

 

2. Team Composition

Online registration including information about participants, coach (one per team), and high-school contact information must be completed online by [Deadline 1]. Changes will not be allowed unless a change involves a medical incapacitation of a participant.

All student members must be currently enrolled at the high school they represent. The coach must belong to the faculty of the high school represented by the team.

Each team will consist of up to and including three (3) students.  If a team participant has special needs (e.g. disability related), the team must inform NJIT as early as possible but definitely by [Deadline 2] to allow NJIT enough time to accommodate the request.

 

3. Conduct of the Contest

a. Contestants are expected to arrive at the designated Registration Area by 8:30, at which time they can sign in.

b. Upon signing in, each team will be issued a login ID and assigned to one of the PC's in a designated Laboratory. Contestants may use the time before the competition (see the schedule ) to familiarize themselves with the computing environment.

c. The competition is based on a set of programming problems. Each problem is a specification of a computer program (i.e., a description of a relationship between inputs and outputs) that can be solved by developing a program that meets the specification. Each team's objective is to solve as many problems as possible, as quickly as possible and correctly. Instructions describing how contestants are to submit a program for judging will be provided before the contest. Submissions will be carried out electronically.

d. Teams will be allowed to bring at most 2 books to the contest area. Teams may not bring their own calculators, computers, laptops, PDAs, mobile phones, mobile devices or other electronic media.

e. Teams may not accept assistance or advice from anyone not authorized to provide such assistance. No persons other than judges, contest officials, and host site staff will be authorized to give advice. Contest judges will clarify problem statements as needed, and the host site staff may advise system related queries, such as explaining system error messages.  Advisors/Coaches do not participate in the contest except as observers.

f. A contestant may submit a request for clarification of a problem statement in writing only and in English. All questions, regardless of their nature, will be answered in writing. If the judges determine that an error exists in the statement of a problem, a clarification will be issued and be made available to all teams. If no error exists in the statement, the answer to the clarification will only be made available to the team that submitted it. If the members of a team do not fully understand the description of a contest problem, they may submit to the judges a query asking for clarification in writing. A query is for the purpose of asking a specific question about a contest problem. A query should not ask for a rewording of an entire problem description, nor should it ask for advice on how to attack a problem or for confirmation that a particular approach to attacking a problem is sound. Nor should a query ask for assistance in making use of an operating system utility, or a text editor, or a compiler, etc. NJIT student volunteers will be on hand to provide such assistance.  Any query that is deemed by the judges to be irrelevant or inappropriate (e.g., because it asks for advice on how to attack a problem) will not be answered. The team that submitted the query will be notified that its query will not be answered.

g.

Submission:  You can only submit one source code file for each program, either in C++ or in JAVA.

Input/Output:  Every program will expect two command line parameters, namely the name of an input file and an output file.  Detailed directions will be handed out at the contest 

Text Editing: Several simple text editors will be available, including notepad and wordpad.

Printing: There is a printer in the lab that will be available for use by contestants.

A judged run is defined as an execution of a problem solution submitted by a contestant that is performed by a judge and uses input data supplied by the judge. This data is never seen by the contestants. Prior to the contest, the judges will develop a set of test data for each contest problem. To evaluate a submitted program, the judges will apply the program to the appropriate test data. Thus, all programs submitted as potential solutions to a particular problem will be applied to the same test data.

(i) If the program runs for more than one (1) minutes without producing a correct output, it will be judged to be incorrect.

(ii) If the program produces a correct output within one (1) minutes, it will be judged to be correct.

(iii) In any other case, the program will be judged to be incorrect.

 

h. Although the length of the Contest is normally 2.5 hours, the Contest judges have the authority to shorten or extend the Contest in the case of unforeseen difficulties. Should the contest duration be altered, every attempt will be made to notify contestants as soon as possible and to assure uniform impact on all teams.

i. Any attempt to defeat or alter the contest environment may result in disqualification.

j. Any attempt to obtain assistance from outside (including through the Web, the Internet, or by email) will result in disqualification.

k. Assistance from Coaches: Coaches may assist their teams during the orientation/practice session prior to the contest, but they are not to communicate with their students during the contest, unless some unusual circumstance arises.

 

4. Computing Environment

Each team will be assigned to one Pentium-based PC. The space available to each machine can accommodate two team members working on it and there will be enough space for the third member sitting nearby.

The machines in this lab will be running Microsoft Windows. Contestants may write programs in C++ and Java.  Java Version 1.6 or newer (as a DOS command line program) will be used for processing Java programs under Windows. Microsoft Visual C++ 2005 will be available for C++ programming. Eclipse 3.3 is also available for Java programming and is recommended for JAVA. No other programming environment or language may be used

 

5. Scoring

a. The Contest judges will be solely responsible for determining the correctness of judged runs and the winners of the contest. They are empowered to adjust for and adjudicate unforeseen events and conditions. Their decisions will be final.

b. Ranking is based on the number of problems solved. A team solving more problems is always ranked higher than a team solving fewer problems.

c. A score is computed for each team by adding together the number of seconds that elapse before submission of the successful solution. 

d. Within each group having solved the same number of problems, teams are ranked in increasing order based on their score. A lower score results in a higher ranking.

e. Tiebreakers will be applied to teams placing in the top 6 whose numerical scores are equal. The first tiebreaker will be the time at which the last problem solved by a team was solved. Further tiebreakers are at the discretion of the Contest judges.

 

6. Changes to the Rules

Changes may be made to these rules at the discretion of the Contest Director at any time prior to the starting of the Contest. If changes are so made, all contestant teams will be provided with an updated copy of the rules prior to the start of the Contest.