4. Tryouts!

2019 tryouts are over - congratulations to those who made the team! We welcome everyone to continue to come to practices regardless of whether or not they make the team. If you practice regularly, you will have a much better chance next year!

Every September/October, we will hold tryout sessions to recruit and select members who will participate in the competition. There are usually two tryouts and we recommend participating in both if possible.

Please join our Discord for latest updates.

Location:

ICCS 005, 011

Date and time for 2020 tryouts (tentative):

October ??, 2020: 11:00 - 16:00

Bring a laptop (if you don't have a UBC CS account)!

Past tryouts

Rules

Local contests usually last 3-5 hours. You will get a paper copy of the problem set when the contest starts.

To solve a problem, you will need to write a solution in C, C++, or Java and submit it using our contest software to be judged against an extensive set of test inputs. Your solution must terminate within the time limited allocated (usually 2 seconds for C/C++ solutions and 4 seconds for Java solutions) and produce the correct answer. No partial marks will be given.

You are allowed to bring your own laptop.

Note: some other programming languages like Python are usually available, but correct solutions written in them are not guaranteed to run in time.

Details

The contestants will be ranked by the total number of problems solved, with ties broken by the total time it took you to solve them. See Ranking below for more details.

You are allowed any reference material as long as it is on paper. You cannot share those materials or communicate in any way with other contestants - this is an individual contest.

You are also allowed to consult the online language references:

You are not allowed to use the Internet for anything else. In your code, you can use any language features, including the standard libraries. What's considered standard is at the judges' discretion - use common sense (things we will not like: trying to crash the judge's machine, calling an interpreter for another language within your program, etc.).

If you think that a problem statement is ambiguous, and you are really really really sure about it, you can communicate with the judges using the Clarifications feature in the contest software.

Setup

A coach will provide setup instructions and accounts for online judge before the start of the contest.

Judge environment details: All source code submitted shall be compiled and run in the environment listed above. You MAY use a different OS/compiler to develop, run and test your own programs. But if you do so, please AVOID any OS/compiler specific feature (i.e. use standard C/C++/Java/Python).

Judge responses

You will get one of the following responses for each solution submission:

  • Accepted. Congratulations, you've solved this problem!

  • Incorrect Output. Your program finished cleanly within the time limit, but did not produce the correct output.

  • Time Limit Exceeded. Your program didn't finish within the time limit.

  • Run-time Error. Your program crashed (this might mean a segfault, a division by zero, etc.)

  • Presentation Error. Your answer is probably correct but the output is not formatted properly.

  • Compilation Error. Your program didn't compile on the judge machine.

  • Submission Error. We need to talk to you about something. Send us a clarification.

Ranking

The contestant with the most problems solved wins. Ties are broken by the time it took you to solve the problems. If you submit a problem X minutes after the contest has started and you get it correctly, X will be added to your total time penalty. Each incorrect submission for the problem that you eventually get correct will add additional 20 minutes to the time penalty.

Example: you submit problem A after 34 minutes. Then you try problem C twice and fail both times. Then you try problem B and fail. Then you try problem C again at 123 minutes (since the contest started) and it's correct. Your final score is 2 problems solved and the time penalty is 34 + 123 + 20 + 20 = 197. Your incorrect try for B didn't count, since you never solved it. Thus you will be ahead of everyone with no problems, 1 problem, or 2 problems and more than 197 minutes.

And finally...

Good luck, and have fun!