2003 ACM
International Collegiate Programming Contest
Sponsored by IBM
Asia-Specific Regional Contest Rules
(* Indicates revision after
The ACM International Collegiate Programming Contest (ICPC) is an activity of the ACM that provides college students with an opportunity to demonstrate and sharpen their problem-solving and computing skills. The ACM/ICPC Asia Regional Contests invite Asian students to meet, establish friendships, and promote fair competition in programming.
Rules for the
II. Additional
Regional Contest Organization and Administration
1. The Asia Region
covers all territories and countries in Asia, such as Hong Kong, Taiwan, South
Korea, North Korea, Japan, China, Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Philippines,
Indonesia, India, Sri Lanka, Burma, Vietnam, Macau, Mongolia, Siberia,
Pakistan, Bangladesh, Israel, Iran, Middle-Eastern, and Central Asian
Countries, etc.
2. Asia Regional Contests do not divide the region by political territories. A team that advances to the Contest Finals represents the team¡¯s university, not the team¡¯s political boundary.
3. The contest is a two-to-four-tiered competition among teams of students representing institutions of higher education. The first tier includes the Regional Contests, which are held through November and early December of each year. The top-scoring team from each site of the Regional Contest automatically advances to the Contest Finals (the second tier). A pre-regional tier is described in item 9 of this section titled "Local Area and School Level Programming Contests".
4. The
5. Asia Super Region is organized as one single region
-- Asia Region. This unique regional organization in
6. The recommended organization of the Steering Committee for each site usually consists of the following members:
Honorary Chairs (Optional)
Chair (Regional Contest Site Director)
Co-Chairs (Asia Contests Director is, by default, one of the Co-Chairs)
Committee
Coordinator or Associate Site Director (optional)
Chief Judge and Judging Team
System (Hardware/Software) Chair
Registration Chair
Publicity Chair or Activities/Operation Chair
The Steering Committee for each contest site may
implement additional rules and a different committee organization pertaining to
the contest site. However, the consultation with the Asia Contests Director is required prior to the establishment of such rules or
organization.
7. (*)
Each University or college in
8. (*) Because of
the problem of ¡®no-shows¡¯ by the foreign teams who register and confirm
participation but do not actually participate in the contest, it was decided
that: If such team do not cancel their registration at least three (3) weeks
before the contest date,
and do not show up in the contest, this team's contestants will
be disqualified for all other contest sites in the same contest year.
9. Local Area and School Level Programming Contests:
a. Each country or larger territory area may organize a local programming contest with its winners advancing to the Regional Contest. If the area organizes a local contest, the area¡¯s local contest committee decides the number of teams to participate in the regional contest.
b. A University or college may have a School Level Programming Contest, with its winners advancing to the Local Area Programming Contest (or Asia Regional Contests). The winners of the Local Area Programming Contest may advance to the Asia Regional Contest. A team may participate in the Regional Contest, bypassing the School and/or Local Area levels, with the approval of the Regional Contest Site Director.
10. (*) Internet Regional Contest and
On-Site Regional Contest:
ACM / ICPC Asia Region has grown substantially in recent years. On-Site Regional Contest usually cannot
accommodate large numbers of teams.
It is mandatory that each site accommodates all of qualified registrations. To accomplish such goal, it is strongly
recommended that each site conducts two cycles of regional contests ¨C Internet
and On-Site. Each site should
conduct Internet Regional Contest in advance to select an appropriate number of
teams for the On-Site regional contest.
Those teams not selected for the On-Site Regional Contest will be ranked
as honorary mentioned teams in the Regional Final Ranking. Each Contest Site Director may set up
its own selection criteria for teams to be advanced to On-Site Regional
Contest. Contest Site Director may
also set up its own contest rules for the Internet Regional Contest, while
On-Site Regional Contest must follow Asia Rules and ICPC Regional Contest
Rules. It is also recommended that
foreign teams may be exempted from Internet Regional Contest.
If the total registration is low and all teams can be
accommodated by On-Site Regional Contest, the Internet Regional Contest may be
skipped.
11.
(*) The
All contestants are urged to study
the
A student may compete
in at most four of five
Consecutive Regional
contests commencing with the
first
regional contest held after the student
begins
post-secondary (note: post-secondary means
after high
school) studies at an institution of
higher
education. A student who has competed in
two World Finals is no longer eligible to
compete.
Please refer to ICPC
Regional Rules for exception
and
for
approval procedure. During the transition
year
of Oct/Nov 2003, the
Contest Site Director
may
allow the participation of a team created
within
the framework of the old rule.
Remarks on
So technically, it is
possible that a team may
Consist of three
first-year graduate students if
each
of them meets the
in
a four-year program or university.
Participation
of multiple sites for the same year
of
competition
under the
Regional Contest Winning Team and Award
1. (*) The winning team of each contest will automatically advance to the World Contest Finals and will receive partial travel support from ACM and its sponsors. Additional wildcard berths in the World Finals may be awarded to any contest team in a site with high registration count, at the discretion of the Asia Contests Director. The wildcard teams, with good performance, may or may not receive travel support to the Contest Finals. However, the best team from the University hosting the contest will have the higher priority in becoming the wildcard berth to the contest finals if the following four conditions are met:
(1) No winning team comes from the University hosting the contest.
(2) The host university can become a wild card berth at most one time for
every three years of hosting and the university has not been a
wildcard berth for previous one or two times of hosting the contest.
(3) The host team is ranked in the top 5 in actual ranking for that contest
site.
(4) The wildcard berth has been allocated for that particular contest
site with high registration count.
2. A university or college can have at most one qualified team that advances to the World Finals.
3.
Any team qualified to advance to World Finals who have solved at least one
problem must have registered the team one week before the contest date and must
have completed the team information one week before the contest. Failure in
doing so will disqualify the team to the World Finals.
4.
(*) In an effort to encourage the participation of female students in Asia
Regional Contests, the Asia Regional Contests Director will award each female
contestant a cash award of $100 if (1) the team has three female contestants;
and (2) the team is ranked in the top 10 of actual ranking and is the best
female team in that contest site.
5.
(*) Contestants who qualify for the World Finals in one of the Asian sites
cannot participate in other sites¡¯ contests that are held later on in the same
contest year.
6. Each Contest Site Director may rank the teams approximately in the top half. The rest of the teams will be acknowledged in alphabetical order, but not ranked. The final ranking of the top half should combine the rankings of universities as well as teams. Final standings will first be ranked from the top team from each university/college. Other teams from the same college will then be ranked as ties with that of the next ranked team of another university. Each Contest Site Director may select the first 6 or 10 universities to award special prizes.
7. (*) Team Members Substitution in World Finals and in Regional Contest:
The team members for the team advanced to World Finals must be identical to the members participated in the Regional Contest. No substitution or reserves will be allowed in the World Finals. Any alteration on the team will disqualify the team to the World Finals. However, Regional Contest may allow reserve team member registration and may allow the substitution of the team member in the regional contest provided that the team composition change is entered in the ICPC registration web site before the Regional Contest. Any change to the team after that regional contest is not allowed.
8. (*) Visa preparation for the Advancing
Team:
The
team advanced to the World Finals must obtain passport immediately and must
apply visa as soon as possible. It
is strongly recommended that the team must prepare the following documents for
Visa application, especially to
a. Print ACM / ICPC background information from ICPC website.
b. Read all Visa information from ICPC Website.
c. Present invitation letter and support letter from ICPC and the support letter from IBM.
d. Get an official letter of support from your university for each of your party.
e. Get an official letter of support from a political figure supportive of your university.
f. If you have a scholarship or other grant that supports you as a student, get an official letter verifying that fact.
g. Present the winning certificate.
h. Your and your family¡¯s financial situation. For example, you or your parents have a large amount of money in a savings account.
i. Present proof that you have traveled to other countries and you have returned to your own country.
j. Present the letters from your university regarding your financial support.
k. Present the letters from university for verifying the contestants are full-time students and will obtain their degree from the same university.
l. Detail schedule and air tickets for the trip.
Conduct and Scoring of the Contest
1. A minimum of six problems and a maximum of nine will be posted.
Contestants will have four hours and thirty minutes or five hours to complete
the problems.
2. (*) Contestants may bring their own keyboards. The team is responsible for any trouble installing its own keyboards. Contest Site Director may reject such request.
3. Electronic dictionaries are not allowed. Paper dictionaries, however, are allowed. Contest Site Director may alter this rule; The World Finals rule on reference materials may be different from this.
4. No personally owned diskettes or calculators are allowed.
5. Questions or requests written in a language other than English may be made from contestants to designated translators and then to judges. Judges will respond to contestants directly in English.
6.
Notification of accepted runs may be suspended at the appropriate time to keep
the final results secret. A general announcement to that effect will be made
during the contest. Notification of rejected runs will continue until the end
of the contest.
7. Team numbers should be assigned randomly before the contest. Team numbers should be used in PC^2. University names should not be used in the PC^2 and should not be revealed to the judging team during the contest. The Contest Site Director is responsible for posting the matching list of team numbers and university names in the audience area within 60 minutes after the contest starts. Contest Site Directors may contact Asia Contests Director to find out an efficient way of random assignment of team numbers.
Judging Team and Contest Problem Creation
1. The Chief Judge and Site Director of each contest site are responsible
for organizing the judging team. No member of the judging team should be the
coach of any contest team. It is highly recommended that the judging team
consist of faculties from other universities and/or industry professionals. The
use of an international judging team is also encouraged, if possible. The size
of the judging team is recommended to be equal to the number of contest
problems in the contest.
2. The Chief Judge and Site Director of each contest site is responsible for issuing "Call for Contest Problems" to university faculty members and industrial professionals at least three months prior to the contest date to solicit contest problems and solutions. The Chief Judge and the judging team shall keep the submitted contest problems confidential. The Chief Judge and the Contest Site Director make a final decision in selecting the contest problems, in modifying the submitted contest programs, or in adding additional contest problems. Except with special approval from the Asia Contests Director, it is mandatory that no more than one contest problem shall be selected from the same submitting university or the same submitting industrial organization. To ensure fairness, it is highly recommended that contest problems should not be selected from universities who are participating in the contest. Especially, the contest problem submitted by a team coach must not be selected.
3.
(*) Judges are encouraged to take care that there is one problem in the set
that is fairly easy, and at least one or two problems are medium difficulty
since the wild cards distribution formula will probably count only the teams
that have solved at least one problem.
Contest Environment
1. The contest language software will be made available by Contest Site
Director to the contestants in advance of the Regional Contests.
2. (*) The Contest Site Director, at his/her discretion, may choose to provide each team with a sufficient number of diskettes for their use during the contest.
3. More specific details on the contest environment, including RAM and hardware configurations, software versions, and printers will be announced by the Contest Site Director and may be different from those used in World Finals. For example, World Finals uses Linux operating system.
4. Contest judging software (e.g., PC^2) will be provided from ACM/ICPC website http://www.ecs.csus.edu/pc2/pc2code.html
Registration Fee
The Steering Committee of each contest site determines the registration fee of each team. In previous years, the regional registration fee ranged from $0 to $150 around the world.
World Finals Dates for Teams
Advanced
1. (*) The ACM International Collegiate Programming Contest Finals
sponsored by IBM (World Finals) will be held in March 28 ¨C April 1, 2004, in
Prague, The Czech Republics.
2. The winning teams of the World Finals will most likely receive large scholarships and prizes. For example, the March 1997 prizes ranged from $1000 to $12000 USD for the top 10 winning teams in the World Finals.
Industrial Sponsorships
ACM/ICPC has received major sponsorship from IBM since July 1997 for
World Finals events, ICPC organization and regional contest activities, and
most of the software used for Regional Contests.
IBM also provides additional funds available to support part of the
regional contest activities for each site. The Asia Regional Contests are
self-supporting for each contest site. Each Regional Contest Site Director is
responsible for obtaining financial support from local industries, government
entities, and universities. The industrial sponsorships of a few commercial
companies for such financial sponsorships are restricted. The Regional Contest
Site Director is recommended to find out such restrictions from the Asia
Contests Director. It is further required that the banner "ACM/ICPC
sponsored by IBM" must be displayed in a prominent place at the contest
site.
All
regional Contests must award ICPC certificates, use ICPC badges, and provide
conforming ICPC T-shirts. All Regional Contests must comply with ICPC sponsoring
agreements regardless of whether ICPC, IBM sponsor funding, or local IBM
funding is provided.
Guidelines for Travel
Stipend for Foreign Teams
1. In order to encourage Asian teams to participate ICPC Asia contests in
a foreign country, the Asia Contests Director prepares limited budget each year
to tokenly support limited number of teams traveling to foreign countries.
2. Subject to fund availability, the maximum supporting formula used is: (a)The first team of a university receives $500, the second team $300, and the third team $200 if the teams travel by air. These teams include the participation of all sites by a university. (b) The support is reduced by half if the travel is by land.
3. (*) After the Regional Contests, the Contest Site Director will send the travel¡¯s support application forms to foreign teams. The foreign teams should send such support application to Asia Site Directors or Asia Contests Director. There will be no surprise checks without application after 2002 regional contests. Each site has a limited fund set by Asia Contests Directors each year. The distribution of such fund will be based on the total number of applications received.
4. (*) The distribution of such travel support is made by the following priorities: (i) the support promised by Asia Site Directors (ii) the support approved by Asia Contests Director (iii) the remaining amount is distributed according to the contest ranking, and the needs of the foreign teams, and the promotion direction of the future Asia contests.
5. The support checks will be issued after the contests are over and
written in University checks only. The checks will be issued to the team
coaches according to the data provided by the coaches during registration and
kept in ACM/ICPC web site detailed roster and by the contest ranking of each
site.
6. This Travel Stipend Policy is a guideline. Asia Contests Director reserves the right to modify the guideline or not to issue any travel supports.
Documents to be submitted by Contest Site Director
At the end of the contest, each Regional Site Director is required to submit the following three items:
1. Contest Ranking: University names, problems solved, and time consumed.
2. Contest Problems
3. At least ten photos containing contestant activities, and five photos containing officer's activities. (Actual Photo or Web Site Photo only)
Items 1 and 2 must be created in the website of each contest site and the
links must be entered in the ACM/ICPC website within two days after the
contest.
(*)
October 11, 12 (Sa, Su) Kolkata-Roorkee Site (
October 25, 26 (Sa, Su)
November 1, 2 (Sa,
Su) Aizu Site (