Spring 2000 UCSD Programming Contest

Sponsored by

Microsoft and The Dini Group

Results from Spring 2000 Programming Contest

Problems from Spring 2000 Programming Contest

Analysis of Spring 2000 Programming Contest

Spring 2000 Programming Contest Pictures

Editors: Visual Studio (C and C++), Emacs, and Vi

Prizes: The top 2 finishers will each receive a $150 Fry gift certificates, and the 3rd through 10th finishers will receive $50 Fry gift certificates. These gift certificates are provided by The Dini Group . Additional software prizes will be awarded to the top finishers provided by Microsoft.

Food: Pizza and pop will be provided for everyone by Microsoft.

How to sign up: Sign up using the the on-line electronic form . You must be a UCSD undergraduate to participate, or be a graduate student who (1) does not have a masters degree and (2) is only in your first year of graduate school. Participation will be limited to around 70 students because of available space, so be sure and sign up early.

For this contest you can either compete individually or compete on a team, where each team will consist of at most 2 people. You will sign up via the submit form individually, and then during registration you will specify if you are on a team and who your partner is. You you do not have someone to be on your team, you can potentially hook up with someone just before the contest. Each team gets only 1 computer, and the team has to share that computer to solve the problems. Therefore, in terms of contest there is only one overall placement and ranking for prizes based, individuals and teams will compete against each other.

List of Everyone Signed Up

Official Instructions

More Contest Details:

We will start giving out contest accounts at 5:00, and the contest will start promptly at 6:00. If you do not show up by 5:45, then your slot may be given to another student, and we will go over the rules starting at 5:50. We'll also order the pizza by 6:00 giving people a chance to vote on what they like. The contest will last for 4 hours, and prizes will be awarded by 10:30.

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 mailed 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.

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