ICPC South Central USA Regional Contest

The 2021 South Central USA Regional was be March 5th, 2022. Results will be published soon.

Please read the following sections for more details:

• Contest Report
• Next Year Regional

Informations about Contest:

• Registration
• Regional Rules
• Divisions
• Practice Contest
• Contest Details
• Kattis Accounts, Contest Login, Languages
• Proctor Info
• FAQ
• SCUSA Staff
• Contest Contact Information

There will be NO registration fee this year. After registration you will be contacted with information about T-Shirts.

Regional Next Year

We are looking for site hosts for next year!.

Our next SCUSA Regional will be in February/March 2023 time frame. We hope to return to a traditional distributed regional contest. This means several things:

• We need volunteers to host a site next year
• Entrance fees will return to fund food at sites and prizes
• Coaches will need to deal with travel

Please contact us if you think you might can host. We like a site to host at least 10 teams (with no more than half the teams from that school, i.e. host guests so it does not feel like a single school contest). A typical traditional contest has a practice contest in the morning, lunch, 5 hour regional, supper and the results announcement.

If you have any questions or suggestions, please feel free to send them to management@scusa.lsu.edu.

Registration

Registration deadline for free team t-shirts is February 17, 2022.

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Regional Rules

• Internet resources are NOT to be used (other than DNS and the Kattis Contest Control System).
• No assistance may be provided to the team from other living or AI-like sources (local or remote).
• Post contest interviews with team members (to discuss their submitted solutions) may occur (SCUSA Staff will use contact number in ICPC Registration System for contact information). Team members must be available via their contact info for up to one (1) hour after close of contest.
• Teams will use one (1) computer while competing (no other computers, phones or electronic devices). No secondary computer/device may be used (even for just viewing problems).
• Teams may used printed materials that they have with them.
• Teams may have code on the computer they use. This is different than the past. It is a concession since it is unreasonable to expect people wipe machines. This means teams could pre-prepare templates. Contestants should be prepared to explain any code they use in a submitted solution. If you choose to use code from your machine, be prepared to explain it.
• Teams/coaches may not post anything related to the problem statements, data, data structures, algorithms during the contest.

The coach and all team members agree to follow these rules by entering the contest. Covid, travel restrictions and many other factors have made it impractical to have an in person distributed contest this year. Even though teams will compete without contest official supervision, it is imperative that contestants honor the rules and that coaches make a reasonable effort to proctor (or arrange for proctoring) their team(s).

Coaches should consider setting up a secondary machine for use if the team machine fails. The coach/proctor can attempt to recover data/code from failed computer and restore it to the replacement machine.

During online restricted contests, SCUSA provides local documentation (such as SCUSA Local Doc. Since coaches/teams have time to prepare their machine in advance they should install whatever documentation they feel they may need.

Food and drink during contest are up to local rules.

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Divisions

This year we will support two Divisions: I and II. Division I is the normal regional grouping from previous years. Division II is intended for less experienced teams and features a different problem set that is not as challenging as the Division I problem set.

Since SCUSA will be online, we will not have sites in the traditional sense. We will have a site D1 (Division I) and a site D2 (Division II). By deciding which site you compete in, you decide what division you are competing in.

Teams advancing to the ICPC North America Championship will be taken from the top of Division I. If not enough teams in Division I solve a problem, then selection will continue into Division II.

Note that if a school has teams in both divisions, the teams from that school in Division II will not be eligible to place (to ensure as many schools as possible get recognized).

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Practice Contest

A practice contest will be held prior to Regional. It will start on March 4th at 5:00 PM (Central Time) and will continue running until Saturday, March 5th at noon. This is an opportunity for teams/proctors/coaches to ensure that their machines work, that they can login to Kattis and that they know how to submit and understand Kattis. Division I and Division II will have the same practice problems.

Note: Make sure that when you sign in, that it does NOT say Spectator in the top right of the screen. If it does, you are in the wrong Kattis account. Please take advantage of the Friday practice to ensure that you are using a valid, contestant account. Each team member has an account. All of these accounts are tied to your team account. Any one of them may be used.

Here are the web links for the contests. You will use the same address for the practice that you use for the Regional (it will cut over between contests).

• Division I: scusa21d1.kattis.com
• Division II: scusa21d2.kattis.com

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Contest Details

Practice Details

Regional Details

Since most coaches will be occupied proctoring, we have not scheduled the nornal coaches roundtable during the contest.

Contest Login URI

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Kattis Account, Contest Login, Languages

The contest will use Kattis for teams to login to. Kattis will provide the following:

• Team Login
• Solution Submission
• Clarification Submission and Response
• Problem Statements
• Language Information

Actual logins for practice and regional are:

Kattis accounts have been created. Here is information from the Kattis team:

When we import registration data into Kattis, we use each contestant's ICPC registration email address to match against our database for existing Kattis accounts.
• For people whose email addresses we do not find, we create a new Kattis account for each of them and email them their new account.
• For people whose email addresses we do find, they should use their existing Kattis accounts that correspond to that email address (the one in the ICPC registration data). These people do not receive an email about a new account (because no account is created).
• Regardless of whether someone receives a new account or not, everyone in the contest should use the Kattis account associated with their ICPC registration email address.
• If someone ends up with two Kattis accounts, we can merge them (contact@kattis.com).

You will not have early access to the problems. They will be available in Kattis when the contest starts. If you want printed copies, you need to ensure that you can print after contest starts. Coaches, if you want your teams to have printed copies of the problems you will need to arrange a way for you to print them AFTER the contest start. It is acceptable for the coach to print problem sets at the start of contest and distribute to teams. If you do so, you should print all copies and distribute at same time to all of your teams (i.e. don't give Team A their set and then print set for Team B, ...).

Proctors/coaches may provide printing (shared printing or printer per team). If the printer is shared, the printing process needs to be designed so that it is clear which printout goes to which team (banners or some such).

Prior to the start of the contest, all teams will receive Kattis login information. You should go to Kattis prior to the contest (several days before) and make sure you can login and get used to Kattis's submission method, scoreboard and clarification system. If your login does not work at contest start (all three team members should have valid logins that tie to this one team), it will take significant time to have the issue resolved (the Kattis admins will be very busy).

You may use C, C++, Java, Kotlin and Python 3.

You should visit Open Kattis And make sure you know how to submit for your language(s). Your Kattis login that you will use to compete should allow you to login to Open Kattis.

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Proctor Info

Here is an attempt to explain what we are looking for in the contest environment. Basically, we want the contest environment to be as close to a normal Regional Contest environment in the past. Here are some guidelines:

• Teams will use one (1) computer
• Teams will use it as a single workstation (not as a multiuser environment with multiple concurrent users)
• If using a laptop, an external keyboard, mouse and/or monitor may be used. The monitor must be in mirror mode (not increasing space via dual monitors). Use of an additional keyboard/mouse s as an replacement -- not for simultaneous use.
• Teams may access their Kattis web site. No other Internet use is allowed (beyond the obvious need for DNS). Accessing the Internet is not acceptable. Use of any application on the computer that takes advantage of remote resources is not acceptable.
• Use of an additional computer, use of a phone or any other device is unacceptable. If the computer fails, the proctor will over see move to another machine.
• Users may have pre-loaded their computer with data and/or code.
• It is acceptable to have USB key(s) in the computer (In fact, I recommend that you do have one installed and that the team should back their source up to the key).
• Teams may talk to their team members. Discussion with anyone else (other teams, coaches, ...) is not acceptable. This includes chatting over the Internet.
• Watches are allowed. Teams should NOT use the calculator or Internet resources of their watch.
• Proctor(s) should be visible to the team(s) at all times. Team members should be visible to the proctor(s) at all time.
• Printing (if offered) is done in a way to ensure teams cannot get other team's printouts. Proctors should deliver printouts if available.

The contest is about the three team members solving problems and submit solutions via Kattis without the use of the Internet or other external resources/people.

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FAQ

Here are some questions that have been asked and the answers we have provided:

• Will prizes be awarded?
  No prizes will be awarded this year. Since no entrance fee was collected, no pool of money exists to take from to pay for prizes. Winners and first to solve will be acknowledged on the web site.
• Are we going to be completing the programs from within a virtual machine, or on our own operating system?
  The team/coach/proctor is providing the one computer system the team will use. No requirement of OS or image is being made by SCUSA. No virtual environments are being provided. The system you use will need to have any languages/tools/IDEs you need to compete with.
• Are there any restrictions on what IDE we are allowed to use?
  The code must run locally. You may not use a tool that is accessing the Internet.
• Are we allowed to use any resources that we have downloaded locally to our computer?
  Yes, you may load any reference info you wish. You may not use any tools that generate your code. You may be asked post contest to discuss any submissions you made. Make sure you understand any code you use from a resource you downloaded.
• Are we allowed to chose which programming language we use on a case by case basis for each question?
  During Regional, Kattis will accept submissions in C, C++, Java, Kotlin and Python 3. You may use any of these languages on any submission.
• What if my computer breaks during contest?
  Hopefully a spare is available (all teams should bring a second machine equally prepared if possible). You would move to the backup machine in this case.
• May we have USB storage devices plugged in?
  In this case I highly recommend this. I would suggest that each team have an empty key connected at beginning of contest. You should then periodically sync your solutions to that key. This would allow you to take the key to the backup machine and minimize loss of effort.
• Will there be a practice contest?
  The practice contest starts Friday at 5:00 PM and runs until noon on Saturday. You may use this time to make sure you know how to login and submit code for judging as well as get used to the scoreboard. Note: Make sure your login does NOT say spectator in the upper right of the screen. If it does, this account will not be able to submit solutions that count for the team.
• Can I practice with Kattis before 5:00 PM Friday?
  Yes. You can go to Open Kattis. Your team login should work. Kattis should have many problems for you to practice with.
• May we use GitHub...?
  No. During the contest you may not access the Internet (other than Kattis). You should pull anything you want down in advance.

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SCUSA Staff

• Regional Contest Directors: Kathy and Isaac Traxler
• Master of Ceremonies: Glenn Downing
• Chief Judge: David Van Brackle
• Contest Control System: Kattis Team
• Technical Support: Jason Kincl, Tim Wright
• Your name could be here!

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Contest Contact Info (During Contest)

http://acm2021.scusa.lsu.edu

• via Discord: ICPC IO SCUSA discord channel (Discord Invite)
• e-mail: management@scusa.lsu.edu

For questions concerning the contest, please send email to management@scusa.lsu.edu.

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