Rules


	St. Joseph's College Annual High School Computer Programming Competition

MAY 20, 2008

The Contest Rules: (subject to change, please check this website occasionally)

1.    Each team must consist of one to three students currently enrolled at the high school they represent.

2.    One faculty advisor from each school must accompany the school’s team(s).

3.    Each team will be allowed to bring only ONE language reference book for each computer language they intend to use.

4.    Each team will be asked to solve the same set of six problems.

5.    Each team will submit problem solutions in the form of source code. Solutions will be stored in the team's folder on the St. Joseph's College server. Access to the team's folder will be granted at the beginning of the competition and will be revoked at the end of the competition.

6.    Each team will be assigned an area where the members may work on algorithms and discuss problems. Scrap paper and pencils will be provided.

7.    There will be no communication between the teams during the competition. In addition, except in the case of an emergency, there will be no communication with the team’s faculty advisor.

8.    All solutions must be coded using disk based text files for input. Programs output must be sent to the console output device and must strictly follow the format of the sample output provided with each question.

9.    When a team considers a problem solved they will formally submit the program using the program PC^2. The judges will then grade the submission and return a message (with in a few minutes) indicating the correctness of the submission via.
PC^2. (The use of this program is described in the PC^2 Contestants Guide document, and will be reviewed at the pre-competition briefing). Incorrect solutions may be corrected and re-submitted.

10.    Any modifications of system parameters, including passwords, will result in disqualification.

11.    No Internet or e-mail access is allowed during the competition, nor is the use of headphones, or cell phones, or any other electronic device.     No external storage devices (flash drives, diskettes, CD’s, etc) may be used during the competition. Violations will result in disqualification.

12.    The first, second and third place teams will receive awards; a team must submit at least one correct solution to be eligible for these awards.

The Grading System:
1.    The contest will consist of six problems. Although some problems are more difficult than others, from a grading viewpoint all problems carry equal weighting.

2.    A solution will be deemed correct if for any set of valid inputs, it produces the correct output. The input data set used by the judges to test the program will be different from the input data set used by the contestants.

3.    Only fully complete and valid solutions that are formally submitted will be credited to a team.

4.    A 20 minute time penalty will be imposed for each incorrect submittal.

5.    Teams will be ranked in the competition by the number of correct solution they submit to the judges. The team that submits the greatest number of correct solutions will be the winner of the competition.

6.    In the case of ties, the team with the lowest total team time will be the winner. Team time is the sum of the penalty times imposed for incorrect submittals (20 minutes per incorrect submittal), plus the time elapsed from the start of the competition until each correct problem solution was submitted to the judges. Thus if a team submitted two correct solutions at 50 and 150 minutes into the competition, and also submitted three incorrect solutions, their total team time would be 260 minutes.

7.    The decision of the judges will be final!!!