Fall 2001 UCSD Programming Contest

Sponsored by

Here are the final rankings for the Fall 2001 UCSD Programming Contest. John Bellardo deserves a lot of praise for setting up and running the judging software for the contest. Greg Hamerly, Don Yang, John Rapp and John Bellardo helped to put together the problems. Greg Hamerly, Don Yang, John Rapp, Rick Ord, and John Bellardo where the contests official judges. A special thanks to Geoff Voelker, Rick Ord, Jena Calder, and Neal Palmer for helping out at the contest. Thanks to Mike Dini and UCSD Department of Computer Science for funding the contest!

Fall 2001 overall ranking

Fall 20001 results showing who solve what problems

Fall 2001 problems and answers

Tips for competing in the contest

Make sure you bring your programming language, algorithm, math, geometry, graphics, and reference books and notes with you to the contest. You cannot use any on-line material on the web.

Registration starts at 4:30pm.
The contest officially starts at 5:30pm, so make sure you have registered and are at your machine at that time.

Eligibility: You must be a part time (greater than 50%) or a full time UCSD undergraduate to participate. Contestants may also be graduate students who have not completed more than one year of graduate school, and do not hold any advanced degree (MS or PhD). Participation will be limited to around 80 students because of available space, so be sure and sign up early.

Languages: You can program in either C, C++ or Java

Editors: Emacs and Vi

Prizes: The top 10 individuals will receive cash prizes sponsored by The Dini Group .

1st - $600,
2nd - $400,
3rd - $250,
4th - $150,
5th through 10th - $100 each.

Additional door prizes will be given out.

Food: Pizza and pop will be provided for everyone.

How to sign up: Sign up using the the on-line We have reached our compacity of 80 contestants, and the signup period is now closed. We will have another contest in Spring 2002, so please check back again at that time.

List of Everyone Signed Up

Official Instructions

More Contest Details:

We will start giving out contest accounts at 4:30, and there will be a practice problem starting at 5:30. The contest will start at 6:00. If you do not show up by 5:30, then your slot may be given to another student. We'll also order the pizza, so that it shows up around 5:45pm. The contest will last for 5 hours, and prizes will be awarded at 11:00pm.

We will have special accounts set up for the contest with logins and passwords. These accounts must be used for the contest. You are not allowed to take code from other accounts or from the Internet, but you are allowed to bring any books or written material with you to the contest. From example, you may want to bring programming language books, algorithm and theory books, math books, etc.

The contest will consist of 6 questions (2 easy, 2 medium, and 2 hard). Your solutions will be submitted to a primary account, where judges will review them, and you will be given a form similar to as is done at the ACM programming contest telling you whether your solution was correct. If it was correct, the form will also tell you your time.

For the final rankings, each person who solves at least one problem will be ranked:

• first by number of problems solved
• second by total elapsed time to each solution (measured to the second) plus a 1200 second (20 minute) penalty per rejected submission for problems that are eventually solved
• and third by fewest number of rejected submissions for problems that are eventually solved

There will be student runners to bring result forms back for submitted solutions, to bring back print outs from the printer, and to run any problem clarifications you might have to the judges.

Results from Fall 1999 Contest

Results from Spring 2000 Contest

Results from Fall 2000 Contest

Results from Spring 2001 Contest

General Tips for the Programming Contest

Contact Brad Calder (calder@cs.ucsd.edu), if you have any questions, or would like to help out with the contest.