ACM-ICPC-Style
Contest Rules Summary
This summary has no official status!
Remember: It is a game, played according to its own rules.
In no particular order:
- Each team consists of at most 3 students
(incl. at most one post-grad in 1st or 2nd year)
- Each team gets to use one computer with software tools/data/docs
- Use of printed books and program listings is allowed
- Use of calculators, CDs, mobile phones, Internet search, etc. is
prohibited
- Teams may not communicate with each other during the contest
- Interference with the contest leads to disqualification
- The contest typically lasts five hours
- Problems may vary (considerably) in difficulty, and
appear in `random' order in the problem set,
- Solutions must be submitted through the mechanism/system provided
- Each submission is judged during the contest (a.s.a.p.)
as accepted or rejected;
the latter will be explained a little bit, but
without further details;
e.g.:
- compile-time error
- run-time error
- resource-limit exceeded
- incorrect output format
- incorrect output
- Ranking of teams is based
- first on number of problems solved
(more is better);
- in case of a tie, the total time for all accepted submissions is
taken into account (less is better);
- time is measured from the beginning of the contest
until the submission was accepted by the jury,
where each rejected submission adds 20 minutes penalty time;
- if there is still a tie,
the time of acceptance for the last problem solved matters
(less is better)
- Clarifications about the problems
concerning a possible ambiguity or error may be asked in `writing'
through an official `channel';
answers will typically be restricted to
Yes, No, No comment
(the latter usually means `stupid question' or
`read the problem statement again').
Questions about technical and organizational issues may be asked separately.
- The standings are public and
updated during the contest,
except near the end (typically the final one hour)
to raise suspense
- The contest director has the final word
Local variations
- Contest system: ...
- Computing environment: OS, compilers, editors, debuggers, documentation
- Printing ...
- Eating, drinking, ...