Mathematical Knowledge
The Mid-Central Regional Contest has traditionally relied on much less mathematical knowledge than the World Finals. To prepare teams a bit more for the Finals, the Chief Judges propose the following changes in expectations:
Up to 25% of the Mid-Central Regional Competition may include higher math as described below. That means a maximum of 1 problem out of a contest with 6-7 problems, or 2 problems out of 8-11.
Higher math may include:
In other situations needed mathematical formulas will be provided, for instance for statistics.
Site specific time limits
Benchmarking tests in 2010 showed wide variations in the speed of machines across the region. We're collecting benchmarking stats again in 2011 to confirm the discrepency. In anticipation, starting in 2012 we would like to change the time limit rules.
We have always taken great care to ensure reasonable solutions to our problems can complete in under a minute on even the slowest machines. Problem descriptions have made clear when simplistic or brute-force solutions would not work in a minute. However, when the discrepency in hardware gets too large, a fixed time limit ensuring that an efficient solution will run on a slow machine may allow an inefficient solution to run on a very fast machine. That is the problem we want to avoid by giving each site its own time limit.
We're still looking into the mechanics, but our thinking is that each site will get a different time limit based on the speed of the judging machine. Each site will run the same suite of benchmarks and the results will determine a fixed time limit for that site.
Cloud-based Qualifiying Contests
In preparation for the Mid Central Programming Contest, many coaches run a local qualifying contest at their own university. For 2012, ICPC headquarters plans to provide support for one or more qualifiying contests. Each contest will run in the ICPC cloud with a web browser window for submission and notification of results. Coaches will be responsible for assuring the integrity of the competition and results will only be posted at the institution level.
The benefit to coaches and teams is that they get to participate in a local contest without a lot of setup and overhead. The benefit to the ICPC is to increase participation in related contests and also to help stress test the submission environment.
We'll provide more details as they come available, but don't hesitate to contact the regional director if you are interested or have further questions.