ACM ICPC
ACM Regional Collegiate
Programming Contest
Sponsored by
and
Barclay's Capital Management

Greater New York Region

Sunday, November 3, 2002
Columbia University in New York, NY
 ACM ICPC


Index:
Highlights
General Regional Contest Rules
Region Specific Contest Rules
    Date, Time, and Environment
    Registration
    Prizes
    Personnel
    Conduct of the Regional Contest
    Electronic Submission with PC^2
    Judging the Regional Contest


Highlights

Here are the major differences between this and last year's contest:

  1. The Contest will be held on Sunday, November 3, 2002, at Columbia University in New York, NY
  2. The contest will be held on Linux machines. Make sure your team knows how to edit files (using vi or Emacs) and how to use command-line compilers.
  3. We will have cash prizes for teams that do very well but do not win the contest. See the full rules below.
  4. The programming languages and compilers used will be: C/C++, GCC 3.2; Java, Java JDK 1.4.0; ADA, GNAT 3.14p.
  5. Team coaches must register the team contestants using the ACM ICPC web site by Oct. 6 (four weeks prior to the Contest). Contact the Contest Director immediately if there are any problems registering. Coaches may register as many teams as they wish; however, not all teams may be invited to participate.
  6. See the full rules below about registering guests and reserves.
  7. By Oct. 7 (4 weeks less one day prior to the contest), the Contest Director will e-mail the coaches, telling them how many of their registered teams will be invited to participate.
  8. Payment of $90 per team must be received by Oct. 15 (3 weeks prior to the contest). Checks should be made out to "ACM Greater NY Region" and mailed to:
        Adam Florence
        5058 Sirron Ct
        Dunwoody, GA 30338-5654
  9. Teams may withdraw from the contest at any time. Teams withdraw by notifying the Contest Director. However, refunds will be given only to teams who withdraw on or before Oct. 20 (2 weeks prior to the contest.)
  10. Barclay's Capital Management is donating additional prizes. Barclay's will determine how these prizes are distributed.
General Regional Contest Rules

Please read the rules which apply to every region.

In addition to the general rules, there are additional rules specific to the Greater New York Regional contest. In cases where the specific rules disagree with the general rules, the specific rules take prescedence.

Region Specific Contest Rules

Date, Time, and Environment

  1. The ACM Greater New York Regional Programming Contest will be held from 9 am to 6 pm on Sunday, November 3, 2002, at Columbia University in New York, NY. Contestants will have five hours to solve the six or more posed programming problems.
  2. Contestants are drawn from the greater New York metropolitan area, including areas of New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut.
  3. The site has a capacity of 60 teams.
  4. The languages and compilers used are: C/C++, GCC 3.2; Java, Java JDK 1.4.0; ADA, GNAT 3.14p.
  5. The editors available are: GNU Emacs 21.2; GNU Vim 6.1; Pico 4.2.
  6. Each team will be provided with two computers and access to all compilers and editors used in the contest. All teams will have comparable computing equipment.
  7. The contest site will provide a printing facility that will be shared among the contestants. Printing will be done through the use of networked printing facilities shared by all teams.
Registration
  1. Team coaches must register the team contestants using the ACM ICPC web site at least four (4) weeks prior to the Contest. Contact the Contest Director immediately if there are any problems registering. Coaches may register as many teams as they wish; however, not all teams may be invited to participate.
    Each school is allowed to register one coach. Each team is allowed to register three contestants. This means that if a school sends n teams, it registeres a total of 3n+1 people.
    Schools may register additional people at a cost of $25 per person. This charge includes a t-shirt and food.
    Coaches do not need to specify the team members when they register the team.
  2. Four (4) weeks less one day prior to the Contest, the Contest Director will invite registered teams to participate in the Contest. This will be done by sending e-mail to the coaches.
  3. Invited teams will be determined as follows: Of the teams regsitered by the deadline, teams will be invited in the order in which they registered, subject to the constraint that one team is invited from all schools before two teams are invited from any school, two teams are invited from all schools before three teams are invited from any school, etc. As many teams will be invited as possible, subject to the capacity of the site.
  4. Coaches must send the registration fee of $90 per invited team to the Contest Director. Checks should be made payable to "ACM Greater NY Region" and sent to:
        Adam Florence
        5058 Sirron Ct
        Dunwoody, GA 30338-5654
  5. Any team whose fee is not received at least three (3) weeks prior to the contest may be disqualified and lose their invitation.
  6. Coaches do not need to specify the team members when they register the team. However, any team members not specified by one (1) week before the contest will receive the default t-shirt size of XL.
  7. All teams must complete the required registration forms on the day of the contest. Teams that fail to complete the forms will be disqualified.
  8. If any space remains after all teams which registered by the deadline have been invited, teams which registered late may be invited. Such teams must pay a penalty.
  9. Teams may withdraw from the contest at any time. Teams withdraw by notifying the Contest Director. However, refunds will be given only to teams who withdraw at least two (2) weeks before the contest.
Prizes

This year, we are continuing the additional cash prizes.

  1. The team that wins the contest will advance to the World Finals. The teams that come in first through third will win the corresponding prizes from IBM. This is unchanged from previous years.
  2. Barclay's Capital Management is donating additional prizes. Barclay's will determine how these prizes are distributed.
  3. Let S1 be defined as the set of teams composed of only freshmen and sophomores.
    Let S2 be defined as the set of teams composed of only undergraduates, minus S1.
    Let S3 be defined as the set of teams with exactly one graduate student.
    Notice that the three S's are mutually exclusive, and their union is all teams.
    Assuming that none of the sets are empty, each set will have a top team.
  4. The team that wins the contest will necessarily be the top team of one of the three sets. As stated above, that team will advance to the World Finals and will win the first-place prize from IBM. That team will win no additional prizes.
  5. The top team from the other two sets will each receive recognition, a special certificate, and $300 ($100 for each team member).
  6. It is possible for a team to win both the second or third-place prize from IBM, and the cash prize.
  7. It is possible for a school to win the cash prize in multiple sets.
  8. Coaches must bring a letter from their school's registrar office stating the academic level of each contestant. Contestants must bring their school ID, driver's license, passport, or other official identification. Cash prizes will not be awarded without documentation.
  9. If one or more of the sets is empty, the Contest Director will decide what to do on the spot.
Contest Personnel
  1. The Contest Director is responsible for appointing a Site Director and Head Judge for the contest, and is ultimately responsible for all aspects of the contest.
  2. The Site Director is responsible for all local contest arrangements, including the solicitation of on-site volunteers, procurement of rooms and equipment (including backup systems), and so forth. The Site Director will conduct a meeting with the contestants prior to the start of the contest to reiterate the contest procedures and explain any site-specific policies, and will distribute the official contest results to all teams that participate in the contest.
  3. The Head Judge is responsible for coordinating all aspects of the judging effort. The Head Judge will explain the judging procedures and work with the other judges to distribute the contest judging and record-keeping responsibilities.
Conduct of the Regional Contest
  1. At least six problems will be posed.
  2. Each team must have a faculty advisor and a coach, who may or may not be the same person. The coach need not be a member of the faculty. The faculty advisor needs to be able to verify the elegibility of the contestants on the team. The coach must accompany the team to the contest.
  3. Coaches and alternates will have no contact with their teams during the contest. The penalty for contact is immediate disqualification of all teams from that school.
  4. Coaches will receive a copy of the problems once the contest has begun. If a coach suspects any ambiguity in the problem statements, he or she must report this to the Contest Director for an immediate ruling.
  5. If the Contest Director or Head Judge decides that a clarification is necessary, the Site Director will disseminate this information to all teams.
  6. The team coach may replace any registered team member with an alternate provided that the Contest Director is notified in writing prior to the start of the contest. The new team with the alternate must meet all contest eligibility requirements.
  7. The Contest Director, Site Director, the Head Judge, and the pool of team coaches present serve as the final authority for resolving all local contest matters.
  8. No penalties will be assessed for obtaining printed listings during the contest. Local procedures for obtaining a listing will be explained by the Site Coordinator during the meeting of the contestants.
  9. Everyone who attends the contest gives permission to the Region and any organization it designates to use their likenesses in electronic and physical publications.
Electronic Submission with PC^2
  1. Submission of problems will be electronic, with PC^2 version 8.2. Please read the Contestant's Guide.
  2. In the event that PC^2 fails, we will use manual submission using floppy disks. Floppy disks will be provided.
Judging the Regional Contest
  1. The team coaches will serve as judges, and will keep the local contest records. Schools without a team coach in attendance will have no input in the contest judging decisions; these teams agree to be bound by the judging decisions of the team coaches attending.
  2. Teams will not be given the test input files that the judges will use to determine program correctness.
  3. Solutions to problems submitted for judging are called runs. Each run is judged as correct or incorrect, and the team is notified of the results. Incorrect runs will be marked with one of the following comments. They are listed in decreasing order of severity.
    1. file naming error: The file naming convention was not followed. Either the submission was incorrectly named, or the program did not read from / write to the correctly named file.
    2. compile error: The program did not compile.
    3. run-time error: The program did not run to completion.
    4. wrong answer: This means that the program compiled and ran, but produced incorrect output.
    5. time limit exceeded: The program did not finish executing within the 2 minute time limit.
    6. presentation error: The output was nominally correct, but was not in the correct format.
  4. The Contest Judges are solely responsible for determining the correctness of submitted runs. In consultation with the Contest Judges, the Chief Judge is responsible for determining the winners of the Contest Finals. They are empowered to adjust for or adjudicate unforeseen events and conditions. Their decisions are final.
  5. The final contest results will be announced following the contest by the Contest Director.
  6. Although they are unlikely, the Contest Director will resolve ties by examining the quality of submitted solutions and number of incorrect submissions.
Back to the contest home page.

Last updated 31 October 2002. Please e-mail with comments, questions, or corrections.