About

The Calgary Collegiate Programming Contest (CCPC) provides post-secondary students in Calgary with the opportunity to excel in an ACM ICPC-style programming competition. Students test their aptitude and knowledge against a set of programming puzzles requiring problem-solving, programming, math, and teamwork skills. Teams are ranked according to the number of problems solved within four hours. The CCPC is sponsored by Synopsys and provides a platform for the next generation of computing professionals to pursue excellence. Kattis has graciously sponsored the judging platform.

Prizes
Division 1
First Place $1500
Second Place $750
Third Place $450
Division 2
First Place $300
Second Place $150
General Information Registration:

  • Register on Eventbrite (closes on Wednesday, March 11, 2020)

In order to be eligible for prizes, contestants must be:
  • Enrolled in a post-secondary institution in Calgary, Alberta (undergraduate or graduate)
  • In teams of 1 to 3 members
  • Participating in the same division as everyone else on their team
  • (Extra requirement for Division 2) Students who have not taken (or not currently taking) a data structures course,
    e.g. CPSC 319/331
When:
  • Saturday, March 14, 2020 from 10:00am - 6:00pm (coffee, tea and lunch will be provided)
Where:
  • University of Calgary, ICT 102 and Math Sciences (map)
  • Suggested parking: Math Sciences parking lot, 612 Campus Pl NW
What to bring:
  • Student ID
  • Résumé for Synopsys (intern and full-time positions)
  • Any paper notes, code or textbooks
  • Scrap paper and pencils/pens
Contact us if you have any questions or need to modify your registration
Contest Format Teams of 1-3 students will compete to solve a set of 5-10 programming puzzles over a four hour period. The set will have a good mix of problems varying both in difficulty and subject domain. Most of the problems can be solved through cleverness rather than specialized knowledge, although the latter is an asset. Common subjects for problems include combinatorics, graph theory, number theory, and geometry.

For each problem, your program will be given input describing a test case. It must then provide appropriate output giving the answer to whatever problem was posed. Once you have written a solution to the problem, you must submit the solution on Kattis. Your code will be subject to a large battery of tests. If your code returns correct output on every test case and runs within time and memory limits, the solution is accepted. Otherwise, it will be rejected. You will be told how your program failed, but will not be given details of the failed test case.

Official Rules:
  • Accepted programming languages are C, C++, Java, Python 2, Python 3
  • Input from standard in, output to standard out
  • Each team has access to exactly one computer to be used for writing, testing, and submitting code solutions
  • Code solutions can be printed to debug them on paper and free up the computer
  • Internet access is restricted to standard library and language documentation, as well as the contest website
  • Any standard system software may be used during the contest
  • Teams have unlimited access to any written material they provide, such as textbooks, notes, and printed example code
  • Use of electronic devices other than the computer is strictly prohibited
  • Teams are ranked according to which has solved the most problems, with ties broken by time taken to solve
  • Team names cannot contain profanity or inappropriate naming
Contest Day Schedule 10:00am - 11:00am in ICT 102:
  • Competitor check-in
  • Coffee and Tea served
  • Receive your team logins
  • Overview of rules and instructions
11:00am - 11:50am in the Computer Science Labs (MS First Floor):
  • Practice contest to familiarize competitors with contest system
  • Lunch is served
11:50am - 4:00pm in the Computer Science Labs (MS First Floor):
  • Teams are assigned a computer and login information
  • Official contest start (12:00pm)
  • Scoreboard will be frozen for final hour (3pm) so winners are not known until later presentation
4:00pm - 5:00pm in ICT 102:
  • Presentation by Synopsys
  • Small Bag Prizes will be drawn
  • Presentation of problem statistics (number of attempts, successes, etc.)
5:00pm - 6:00pm in ICT 102:
  • Mingling with Synopsys employees and pizza served
Preparation & Strategies Preparation: Strategies:
  • Read the problems, identify the easiest ones, and solve them first
  • If you're having trouble identifying easy problems, look at the scoreboard to see what others are solving
  • Computer time is very valuable, so sketch out your program on paper before coding it (unless it's trivially simple)
  • Working together on a problem is usually a bad idea and just leads to confusion; assign problems, work in parallel
  • Debugging a program on paper is more effective than sticking print statements everywhere, 99% of the time
  • Come up with your own test cases for your program, especially edge cases
  • Have fun!
Contest Pages & Resources Contest pages (links will be available the day of the contest):
  • Please check back soon!
Language reference links (that can be used during the contest):
About Synopsys

Synopsys technology is at the heart of innovations that are changing the way we live and work. The Internet of Things. Autonomous cars. Wearables. Smart medical devices. Secure financial services. Machine learning and computer vision. These breakthroughs are ushering in the era of Smart, Secure Everything―where devices are getting smarter, everything’s connected, and everything must be secure. Software Integrity, Synopsys’ end-to-end offering, gives companies a turnkey, scalable approach for minimizing software-related business risks, maximizing release predictability and speed, and ensuring internal and external standards compliance. Our software has been used in projects such as NASA's Mars Rover mission-critical software and CERN's Large Hadron Collider software. The Synopsys Software Integrity Group has offices worldwide, like London, Tokyo, San Francisco, Calgary and many more locations, and continues to grow all over the globe.

Links

Synopsys Website | Twitter | Facebook

CPC Website | Facebook | Twitter | Mailing list

UofA Website

UofL Website