I've been thinking about doing this for a while now, and on queue with
Grich's post, I've decided to go ahead with it.
I've designed 4 problems ranging from beginner to advanced difficulty.
Beginner and Junior are for those who haven't had much experience with contest-style challenges, but can still think logically and write good solid code.
Senior and Advanced are for those experienced with writing more complicated algorithms.
Guru will be the trickiest difficulty level which will measure up to the tough IOI and ACM problems. I have not included one in this problem set. I will save them for later once I see what skill level people enjoy doing.
But even for any difficulty, it will be challenging to attain 100%. You must make your solution work for every possible test file. And these test files will not be revealed until after the competition. So test your code inside and out until then.
Please read every rule. Submission deadline is May 31, 2008.
The challenges have been attached to the bottom of this post. As the month progresses, due to necessary clarifications, the rules and/or questions may be updated at any time. Sorry for any inconvenienes.
Thanks and good luck to all who participate! I hope this goes well.
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Rules and General Information
1) Do not post or share any solutions!
2) You may ask questions and give simple hints and tips in the thread provided each month.
3) Input is always in the format specified in the problem, and will be read from the specified file (for example, “move.in”). Output is written to the specified file (for example, “move.out”).
4) You may use any language, but only C/C++/Java/Python will be graded by me (see rule 9).
5) Each solution must take no more than 10 seconds to execute. Also, your program must never use more than 64 MB of stack space (unless otherwise specified). These constraints should only be considered for Senior and Guru level problems.
6) E-mail your submissions to
dr.sane@gmail.com with “SMAC” in the subject line before the submission deadline.
7) You have a month to write your solutions, and submissions are only made final after the deadline cutoff. Before then, if you would like to update your submission, just make sure you e-mail it to me and let me know.
8) It is recommended that you start at “Beginner” to familiarize yourself with the problems, and then work your way up. Even the most experienced programmers may find the last problem(s) very challenging.
9) Sometime after the deadline, results will be publicly posted showing how well each program performed on larger and more tricky data files (not the given sample data). Also, solutions and an analysis of each problem will be given. If your program was not written in C/C++/Java/Python, I will not be able to grade your submission. In this case, I will give you the test files and expect you to report back with your own score within the next couple days.
10) Every solution’s score will be based solely on its ability to solve the unknown test files. Points are awarded for every perfectly matching output file. No points are awarded for clarity, style, presentation, or execution speed (within the alloted time).
11) Don’t take the results (or expectations) of these challenges seriously. The point of this is to learn and have fun. If you would like me to refrain from posting your results or solutions in the analysis thread after the contest, please specify that in your submitted e-mail(s). Good luck and happy coding!
Submission Deadline: May 31