Competitive Programming Contest 2022

Hier die Ankündigung zum langerwarteten Programmierwettbewerb im Rahmen des 50. Jubiläums der Informatik an der RWTH!

As part of her 50th anniversary the Computer Science Department will host a big programming contest on 8th September. Successful students can win prizes and the best teams will be able to compete in the NWERC, the regional contest of the famous ICPC competitive programming contest! Most importantly, however, participating will be fun and preparing for the contest is fun, too, but also a great learning experience.

In this contest, teams consisting of three RWTH students will compete against each other in solving challenging problems. You are given a set of problems, a couple of hours, one (1!) computer, and have to write programs that solve them.

The threshold of winning a T-shirt will be very low and there will be other prices, too. The best teams will represent our university at the NWERC, where they compete against other universities from Germany and North Western Europe.

We encourage you very much to take part in this contest! It will be a challenging, but rewarding experience to solve problems with your colleagues against the clock and against your fellow students. Especially after the pandemic it will be extra nice to see each other in person for such a contest.

During the semester there will be warmup contests where you can get accustomed to the problems and the setting.

Other universities have a long tradition of sending their students to NWERC and ICPC. The RWTH unfortunately has not. We want to change this! Be a part of the first generation of RWTH students fighting for glory.

What is competitive programming exactly?

Usually teams of three students compete against each other at the same time. Each team has exactly one computer to read and solve the problems. In the ICPC contests, the problem set consists of many problems, which are algorithmically of different difficulties. The students have five hours to solve as many problems as possible. The students have to submit a program that solves the given problem written in C, C++, Java or Python.

Registration

The ideal size of a team is three, but we will accept teams of sizes one to four. It is necessary that you register before participating. Please send an email with subject Account to comp50@cs.rwth-aachen.de in the following format: 
Subject: Account
teamname=teamname
username=name1:realname1:email1
username=name2:realname2:email2
username=name3:realname3:email3
Here is an example of such an email: 
	
Subject: Account
teamname=Hot Potatoes
username=JoeDoe:Joe Doe:Joe.Doe@rwth-aachen.de
username=smurf27:Karl:Karl.Ranseier@rwth-aachen.de
username=maria_h:Maria H:huber@informatik.rwth-aachen.de
The email address has to be an official RWTH address and the registration request has also to originate from such an official address. Only students from RWTH are eligible to participate. You will receive a login password per email as soon as we have processed your registration. The username is arbitrary. The real name can be your real name or if you wish something else. The scoreboard will list only the team names. Do not use offensive names or a username with a big chance of name collision. It should be short, though, and must consist only of letters. The teamname can contain spaces and special characters.

Please use exactly the indicated format, which will be automatically parsed.

Your accounts will remain valid for future contests, including the real thing in September.

Contest during our 50th anniversary

Our flagship contest will be held during the 50th anniversary celebrations in a representative lecture hall. The scoreboard will be displayed on video projectors and streamed online. An audience can watch live as the contest progresses and cheer for their favorite team. Of course, there will be a price ceremony.

What is the ICPC, NWERC etc.?

The International Collegiate Programming Contests (ICPC) is the biggest competition in this field. It is held in different rounds each year: national, regional, world finals. The German Collegiate Programming Contest (GCPC) is held around the end of June or early July and determines the best teams from German universities including RWTH. At least two teams per university are sent to the North Western European Regional Contest (NWERC) during November. Again, the best teams of NWERC are sent to the World Finals of the ICPC which usually takes place in spring.

Eligibility and Selection for NWERC

Everyone who is enrolled as a RWTH stdent during the summer semester 2022 and winter semester 2022/23 and is eligible to participate in the NWERC 2022 according to the official ICPC regional contest rules is welcome to participate. If you are a student at RWTH and not eligible for NWERC you are still more than welcome to participate in our local contests.

The best three teams from the contest during the 50th anniversary will be selected to represent RWTH Univerity at NWERC 2022 in Delft.

Preparation

Have a look at the old contests of GCPC, NWERC and ICPC. Also there are problems on codeforces that are excellent for practice. Do not be intimidated by the challenging nature of the problems. After some practice you will be able to master them.