UCSB Programming Contest, Fall 07

(with help from the UCSB ACM Student Chapter, and the Department of Computer Science)
Announcements:
* Sign up by sending mail to sherwood+acm@cs.ucsb.edu.
* If you want to play, but don't have a CSIL account I need to know Monday at the latest
Highlights:
Contest is in CSIL Tuesday October 30th!
Check-in starts at 5:45pm (contest starts at 6pm).
Try out some sample problems to get warmed up.
You can play individually or in teams of two or three.
Delicious pizza will be served to contestants.
What is the Programming Contest?
The UCSB Programming Contest is a fun event that pits your brain against challenging and interesting problems. If your stomach turns at the thought of a word problem, read no further... this is not for you. The programming contest is not a coding contest, although you will have program in C, C++, or Java (your choice). The problems are fun but difficult, and even solving a few of them in the alloted time is a significant achievement. The problems will test your reasoning, math, logic, algorithms, and general problem solving abilities. Plus, just in case you have not had enough free pizza, there will be free pizza.
Eligibility:
You must be a part time or a full time UCSB student to participate. You must bring a valid UCSB student ID with you to the contest. You must not have completed more than 4 years of college. (Being in your 5th year as an undergraduate is OK, as is being in your first year of grad school if you did only 4 years of undergrad). You also cannot have competed in more than 3 ACM regional contests and you cannot have gone to the World Finals more than once. Finally, if you have fun at the UCSB contest we would like it if you would be willing to represent UCSB at the ACM Southern California Regional Programming Contest on Nov. 10, 2007.
Preparation:
1. Make sure you read the instructions and the hints below.
2. Practice solving questions with the Problem Set Archive with Automated Judging . It is highly recommended that before the contest you log on and solve at least one if not all of the following problems: This will give you a feel for what to expect at the UCSB programming contest. For a full list of types of problems and difficulty see the prior contest questions at the bottom of the page.
3. A large part of the contest is to know how to test your own program and how to catch the end cases. It is highly recommended that you use the above website to practice a few problems and the automated judging system will let you know if you missed something (just like at the real contest).
Goals:
One goal of this contest (besides having fun) is to create teams to represent UCSB at the ACM Programming Contest on Nov 10, 2007. If you plan to place at the UCSB contest, please keep Nov 10, 2007 free on your calendar. Top teams from this event will go on to compete at the ACM World Programming Competition Plus, it looks really good on a resume!
Contest Information:
  • You must sign up by sending mail to sherwood+acm@cs.ucsb.edu by monday (if you want pizza).
  • Come by at 5:30 or 5:45 to get set up, we will begin at 6:00pm.
  • The programming part of the contest will last for around 4 hours
  • There will be around 5 or 6 questions to solve (some are harder than others)
  • Pizza will arrive around during the competition, but you can't eat in the lab.
  • Teams are encouraged to compete in the 2007 ACM Southern California Programming Contest on November 10th at Riverside Community College.
  • Languages: You can program in either C, C++ or Java
  • You can bring books if you need them, but internet surfing is not allowed.
  • Editors: Emacs, Vi, Notepad, etc...