American Computer Science League

[yuethomas]

I wonder if anyone has participated in, or even have heard of, the American Computer Science League, ACSL for short. Its programming problems are similar to CCC, from what I have observed; they are a lot harder than the first round of CCC, and a little bit easier than the final round questions. ACSL also has a written portion, for which you have to answer 4 rounds of 5 questions each in 30 minutes. The topics include boolean algebra, digital electronics, bit string flicking, graph theory, binary trees, etc.

The league this year is well under-way... my school is poised for the All-Star Contest (in which the top 15 schools or so are invited to compete) (and I'm the captain) but unfortunately, due to the war in Iraq and the teachers' work-to-rule situation in North York, our trip is cancelled this year.

Well, that's probably more information than you need anyway. Hope to see you on ACSL next year. 8)

[Catalyst]

that sucks, work to rule blows

[Tony]

hey yuethomas, thx for letting us know. Personally I've never heard of it. It would be great if next year you'd remind us in advance so the rest of us would have a chance to convince our schools to participate (meaning let us know well in advance of registration deadline).

[yuethomas]

Okay, some more information:

There are 3 divisions to the contest: Junior, Intermediate, Senior
Each school can have a maximum of one team in any one of the divisions; 3 teams max in total
Each team can be consisted of either 3 or 5 people
There are 4 rounds to the league, each round consisting of 1 written portion and 1 programming problem
The written portion is consisted of 5 problems to be answered in the duration of 30 minutes
The programming problem is to be solved within 72 hours of receiving the problem
Any help is allowed (outside, internet, books, etc) but no plagiarism between contestants is tolerated
The program will be tested against a set of 5 test data for 5 marks
The written portion is also worth 5 marks
Thus one rounds accounts for 10 marks for each individual
Perfect-score written papers and perfect-score programs are returned to the league administration
The school's top 3 or 5 scorers (see above concerning team size) are added to the school's score (the top scorers need not be the same every round)
At the end of 4 rounds, the top 15 or so schools are invited to the all-star contest
All-star contest has a written part and a programming part too
Written part has 10 questions (harder than usual) to be answered in 1 hour
Programming part has 5 (or 3) programming problems to be solved among the 5 (or 3) team members with 3 (or 2) computers within 3 hours
Top scorers on the all-star contest are awarded prizes, and the top schools are awarded medals and prizes

Website is at
http://www.acsl.org/.

[Tony]

thx for the info, but I'm afraid I'm out of the picture there... you see... there're only 2 students in my school who can program. Myself and my friend who's graduating this year. There for the whole school can get a max of 10 points since I'll be the only one writing it... Bummer... a School with a single team of 5 people getting 2 points each is worth the same