There has been a change
in the eligibility rules for the South America ACM-ICPC Contest, in order
to reflect recent changes in the regional rules (please, see http://icpc.baylor.edu/icpc/regionals/default.html. In short, they have gone back to what they were last year.
We apologize for inconveniences this may have caused. Please check the new team composition rules. (Updated Oct 8, 2002.)
Mission
The Programming Contest
provides college students an opportunity to demonstrate and sharpen their
problem-solving and computer skills, awarding prizes according to these
abilites.
Moreover, it provides all
competing teams with equal conditions in order to select the best ones
in the region to the World Finals of the competition.
General
Description
The South America Regional
Contest is the regional event for South America of the ACM Collegiate International Programming Contest.
During the contest, teams composed of up to three students work on 6 to
8 problems of project and implementation of algorithms within a limited
amount of time (5 hours). The rules presented here follow the directions of the ACM International Collegiate Programming Contest
concerning its regional contests.
Organization
The rules of the Programming
Contest follow the directions set by the Steering Committee of the ACM Collegiate International Programming
Contest, presided by the Contest Director, William B. Poucher,
Ph.D., Baylor University, Waco, Texas. The Contest Director names a Regional
Contest Director, who, in conjunction with the Regional Steering
Committee, is responsible for adapting the rules for each region.
In South America the Regional
Contest Director (RCD) is Ricardo
Dahab (IC-Unicamp, Brazil). The regional steering committee for
South America is composed by:
Conditions
for Participating
Undergraduate and graduate
students in the area of Informatics and related who belong to South American
institutions may participate in the contest.
Teams failing
to comply with any of the following requirements will be ruled ineligible
to compete. Any questions about eligibility should be directed to
the RCD . |
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Sponsoring
Institution |
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1. |
Each team and
coach represents its sponsoring institution. |
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2. |
The sponsoring
institution must be an institute of higher (post secondary) education,
typically a university, college, or an institute of technology. |
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Team Coach |
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1. |
Typically, the
coach is a faculty member of the sponsoring institution. If
not, a letter of appointment from a representative of the institution
must be provided. |
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2. |
The coach must
fully register teams in the ICPC Registration
System within the time set by these regional rules. |
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3. |
The coach
certifies team eligibility. |
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4. |
The coach is
the official point-of-contact. If unable to attend, the coach
must designate an on-site coach to be present during contest activities. |
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5. |
Only the coach
may file a complaint. A complaint must be sent to the RCD within two
business days of the completion of the regional contest. |
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Team Composition (new, Oct
8, 2002) |
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A representative
of the sponsoring institution, typically a faculty member, must serve as
or designate the team coach. The coach certifies the eligibility of contestants
and serves as the official point-of-contact with the team. prior to and
during contest activities.
The coach must fully register teams in the ICPC
Registration System within the time set by the regional
rules which, for all Regionals, is no later than 7 days before the contest.
A team is not eligible to compete in the regional contest until the regional
contest director has accepted the team in the web registration system.
Teams failing to comply with any of these requirements will be ruled ineligible
to compete.
Only registered reserves may be substituted for contestants. Such substitutions
must be entered in the web registration system by the regional contest director
before the contest begins.
Each team consists of three contestants. Each contestant must be a student
enrolled in a degree program at the sponsoring institution with at least
a half-time load. This rule is not to be construed as disqualifying co-op
students, exchange students, or students serving internships. A student may
compete for only one institution during a contest year.
At most one contestant of each team may hold a baccalaureate degree. No
contestant may have completed two years of post-baccalaureate studies or hold
a graduate degree. Students who have competed in two World Finals are not
eligible to compete in a regional contest.
Contestant eligibility is determined during the academic term ending closest
to the date of the regional contest. Graduation and degree conferrals are
considered to occur after a term has been completed, not during that term.
Any questions of eligibility should be posed to the regional contest director.
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Each sponsoring institution
may have up to TWO teams competing. There is a limit on the number of teams
which will be accepted at each site depending on the site's capacity.
If the number of registered teams does not reach the site's capacity,
then a THIRD team from the same school may be accepted. If, otherwise,
the number of registered teams exceeds the capacity, a selection will
be made. In any case, the criteria for selecting the teams that will participate
in the contest are (in order of decreasing priority):
1. Coverage:
as much as possible, the Organizing Committee will select teams coming
from different states and countries.
2. Date of registration:
teams with earlier registration dates will have preference, as long as
they have completed the registration procedure.
Important
Dates
- September
30, 2002. Deadline for schools to register their teams. It is not
necessary to register the team members by this date.
- October
7, 2002. Teams receive confirmation of their registration from site
directors.
- October
21, 2002. Deadline for (i) team member's registration, and (ii)
sending the Qualification Statement, filled out and signed by the coach,
who must be a professor from the sponsoring institution or must have been
appointed by a professor of the institution to this function.
- October 28, 2002. Deadline for a team to complete
all registration procedure of his site (including payment of fees).
- 8 and 9 November, 2002. Contest dates.
Programming
Contest Procedures
1. Dates and
Sites
The South American
Regional ACM Programming Contest will take place in 7 sites: Buenos Aires,
in Argentina; Porto Alegre, Recife and São Paulo in Brasil; Copiapo,
in Chile; and Caracas and Barquisimeto, in Venezuela, at the same
day and hour.
The contest is scheduled
to happen on November 8 and 9, 2002.
2. Timetable
The timetables may
change from one site to another. Please look at (not all sites have web
pages yet; please check again soon):
Argentina
Brasil
Chile
Venezuela
3. Language
Printed material
related to the Programming Contest will be distributed in English only.
4. Resource Materials
Contestants may take
to the contest site printed resource materials, such as books, manuals and
program listings. Magnetically stored materials, such as versions of software
or data, will not be allowed.
5. Computing
Environment
The programming languages
of the contest are Pascal, C, C++ and Java.
Computer facilities will
vary depending of each site. Each team can use a single computer.
6. System Support
System support (Staff)
will be available during the contest, as well as backup equipment, to guarantee
smooth operation of the programming environment.
7. The Contest
The Programming Contest
consists of a collecion of 6 to 8 problems to be solved within 5 hours.
Teams should submit a possible
solution to a problem to the Judging Committee, thereby obtaining an acceptance
or rejection of the solution. In case of rejection, new solutions may
be submitted (see scoring below).
A contestant may submit
a claim of ambiguity or error in a problem statement by filling and sending
a Clarification Request to the judges. If they agree that an ambiguity
or error exists, a clarification will be issued to all contestants.
8. Discipline
Contestants must
not talk to anyone except members of their team and personnel designated
by the Regional Contest Director.
Any system problems that
may occur must be communicated to the support staff according to pre-established
procedures.
Any irregular behavior of
a contestant that jeopardizes the contest, according to the Contest Director's
criteria, may cause the team to be disqualified.
9. Alterations
on the Contest Duration
The Regional Contest
Director may alter the length of the contest in the event of unforeseen
difficulties. Should the contest duration be altered, all contestants will
be notified in a timely and uniform manner.
10. Scoring
The first criterion
for ranking the teams is the number of problems correctly solved. A solution
will be considered incorrect if:
a. the program
cannot be compiled correctly;
b. its running time exceeds
the time limit set for the instances in the judge's test set;
c. a runtime error occurs;
d. the program provides
an incorrect answer for some instance of the judge's test set;
e. the output format differs
from the one specified in the statement of the problem.
If the first criterion leads
to a tie, teams who have obtained their solutions in less total time
will be better ranked.
The total time is
the sum of the times consumed for each problem correctly solved. The time
consumed for a solved problem is the time elapsed from the beginning of
the contest to the submission of the accepted run plus 20 penalty minutes
for every rejected run for that problem regardless of submittal time. There
is no time consumed for a problem that is not solved.
The Programming Contest
Judging Committee is the only responsible for deciding the correctness
of the solutions presented for each problem. By consulting them, the Contest
Director will determine the winners of the competition. The Contest Director
and the Judging Committee have power to judge unforeseen situations, and
their decisions are final.
11. Attendance
All contestants
must participate in every required activity of the Programming Contest,
which are:
- the presentation session;
- the warm-up;
- the contest;
- the Awarding Ceremony
and Lunch.
Unjustified absences will automatically
disqualify the team and cause the prizes to be suspended.
Complaints,
Appeals, and Remedies
If irregularities or misconduct are observed
during the contest, team members or coaches should bring them to the attention
of the contest officials so that action may be taken as soon as possible.
After the conclusion of the contest, coaches
may file complaints or appeals as follows:
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* |
Within two (2)
business
days after the contest |
The coach may file a complaint
by sending an email containing a text message with no enclosures to
the RCD, copied to the
Contest Manager. |
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Within five (5)
business
days after the contest |
The RCD shall respond to
the complaint. |
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Within six (6)
business
days after the contest |
The coach may file an appeal
with the Appeals Committee through the ICPC Registration System. |
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* |
Within ten (10)
business
days after the contest |
The Appeals Committee will
investigate the circumstances of the appeal and notify the coach and
RCD of their decision. |
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This process is governed as follows:
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* |
The results of the
regional contest are not final until the complaints and appeals process
has run its course. |
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Only coaches may
file complaints and appeals. |
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* |
An appeal must be
based on one or more of the following circumstances: violations of
the Rules, misconduct by teams, or gross misconduct by contest officials
with the intent to do harm. |
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* |
The decisions of
the judges are final. Specifically, a decision on a problem
submission MAY NOT be appealed. |
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The Appeals Committee
overturns decisions only under extraordinary circumstances. |
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The decision of the
Appeals Committee is final. |
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* |
No additional finals
invitations will be given to remedy to a complaint. |
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* |
All complaints will
be acknowledged. |
Advancing
to the World Finals and Prizes
Winners will receive
a Certificate and all contestants will receive a Certificate of Achievement.
Further prizes may be given by the sites. See the sites homepages.
The winner of the
South America Regional Contest, appointed by the RCD automatically qualifies
to the World Finals. The ICPC Executive Director may provide the RCD with
additional slots in the World Finals. The best qualified teams in the regional
contest are assigned to the slots such that a sponsoring institution is
not assigned more than a slot.
Contacts
Any doubts about details
not mentioned here shall be submitted to the Organizing Committee, which
has the power to judge unforeseen situations.
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