High School Programming Contest

Contest Logistics & Rules

On-Site Teams

On-site teams participating in person will be provided a workspace consisting of a table and three chairs, along with an AC power strip.

Each team needs to bring one computer with the ability to connect to a wireless network for the competition. That one computer, with its one keyboard and one mouse, becomes a shared resource that each team must decide how to best utilize.

The computer can be a laptop or desktop. Only one enabled display is permissible, including the built-in laptop display. If bringing an external display for a laptop, screen mirroring is not permissible, but disabling the built-in laptop display and enabling only the external display is permissible.

On-site teams may also bring one printer (for printing work-in-progress source code or program output for further analysis). Teams may also bring any printed materials (such as textbooks, printed API reference, or example source code for common algorithms).

Virtual Teams

Teams will work remotely and utilize their own communication channel (Discord, Slack, SMS/RCS group chat, audio or video call, etc) for discussing and sharing information, code, and so on with all team members.

Teams may use one computer for each team member. Each team will receive one set of login credentials to the contest system. The contest system purposefully does not allow for two or more simultaneous logins from the same account. The one team account becomes a shared resource that each team must decide how to best utilize.

Contest Flow

At the start of the contest, each team will open their set of programming problems. On-site teams will receive printed paper copies from the contest staff; virtual teams will be provided links to download the problem set for their division as a PDF document.

Students will write programs to solve as many of these problems as they can. Students within a single team may distribute tasks among themselves and work cooperatively in any way they wish.

As soon as a team believes it has implemented a correct solution to a problem, it should submit their program through the online web-based submission system.

If the team’s program does not correctly solve the specified problem on the first attempt, the team is allowed to submit one or more revised solutions. Beyond simply incrementing the count of problems correctly solved, each correct solution will also receive a “time score” which represents the total elapsed time in minutes since the start of the contest, plus any time penalties for incorrect submissions. The time scores only come into play when there is a tie for a given count of problems correctly solved.

Scoring Example

• Team 1 correcly solves its first problem in 30 minutes on its first submission for that problem. Team 1 now has a score of 1 (correctly-solved problem) with a time score of 30 (minutes).
• 20 minutes later (i.e., 50 minutes into the contest), Team 1 solves a second problem on its first submission. Team 1 now has a score of 2, with a time score of 80 (i.e., 30 + 50).
• Meanwhile, Team 2 submits an incorrect solution for its first problem 15 minutes into the contest. They are able to fix their submission and resubmit it at the 45 minute mark of the contest. Team 2 now has a score of 1, with a time score of 65 (solution at 45, plus a 20-minute penalty for the incorrect submission on the problem).
• If the contest ended at this point, Team 1 would win due to having 2 correctly-solved problems. The time score would only be considered if both teams were tied with 2; in that case, the lowest time score wins.

Contest Problems

Contest problems have a very wide range of difficulty. Divisions I, II, & III have separate problem sets; however, there is typically some overlap. For example, the same problem might appear as an “easier” problem Division I and as a “harder” Division II problem. Moreover, we try to include at least a couple problems that every team should be able to solve.