The ACM International Collegiate Programming Contest

ACM is the an international computer organization that every serious computer scientist should be involved with. The annual "ACM International Collegiate Programming Contest is initially held locally with the first three place teams moving onto the Regional Qualifying Competition. The "winners" of the Regional Competition move onto to the ACM International Collegiage Programming Contest.

The competition at any level gives the computer scientist the opportunity to hone his or her programming skills and allows the student to compete against other budding computer scientists.

How does it work?

The competition is comprised of three students sharing one computer solving 5 problems in three hours at the Local level and 8 problems in five hours at the Regional level. The team which produces the the right outputs for a set of test inputs "wins". The strong individual computer programmer certainly is important to the team, but how the team works together and solves together is much more vital. Three teams are selected to represent the University of Windsor, School of Computer Science at the regional level.

Who is Eligible?

All registered full-time undergraduate students and first year full-time master students are eligible to join the competition.

What do I have to program and in what language?

You receive 4 to 6 questions and we allocate 3 to 5 hours to code them. You can use either Java, C, or C++ to code them. All I/O is console based.

The Win Win Scenario!

There is no registration fee or cost associated with the competition. If you are chosen to represent the University of Windsor at the Regional competition, all costs will be covered by the University of Windsor, School of Computer Science.

Locally, the first five placing teams will be recipients of prizes and awards. The real benefit of participation is the knowledge you will obtain, the teamwork you will build and establish networks in the programming world.

History of the ACM International Collegiate Contest

The ACM International Collegiate Programming Contest (ICPC) was incepted in 1970 being held at Texas A&M University and was hosted by Upsilon Pi Epsilon Computer Science Honour Society. It became today's multi-tiered competition in 1977, with the first finals held in conjunction with the ACM Computer Science Conference. Baylor University has headquartered the ICPC since 1989.

The exponential growth of the competition has led to participation in the ICPC from 84 countries, 1737 teams and 5,605 competitors (2005). This is a direct result from IBM and industry sponsorship of the event since 1997. This is the mecca of computer programming competitions for students of computer science.

Interested?

If you are interested in participating in this annual event, you can contact for Dr. Ziad Kobti regarding registration and involvement. An additional excellent resourse is the site held by Baylor University which provides information on the rules, past standings, registrantion, in depth history, and much more.