NCPC-Site-HOWTO.html

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layout: old_default
title: "NCPC site HOWTO"
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<h1>NCPC site HOWTO</h1>

<table>
  <tr>
    <td style="padding-right: 10px;"><a href="NCPC-Site-HOWTO.html">NCPC-Site-HOWTO</a></td>
    <td style="padding-right: 10px;"><a href="NCPC-Director-HOWTO.html">NCPC-Director-HOWTO</a></td>
  </tr>
</table>

<p><i> Unfortunately this page is a bit out of date. We plan to update it. </i> </p>

<h2>Checklist</h2>

<ul>
  <li>Contact the NCPC director Fredrik Niemelä<code>&lt;fredrik@niemela.se&gt;</code> and announce your interest.</li>
  <!-- TODO: Add new links...
  <li>Subscribe to the 
    <a href="https://sympa.uio.no/ifi.uio.no/info/ncpc-info">ncpc-info</a> 
    and <a href="https://sympa.uio.no/ifi.uio.no/info/ncpc-directors">ncpc-directors</a> 
    mailing-lists.</li>
  -->
  <li>Get familiar with team registration procedures (see below).</li>
  <li>Get help needed during competition (judges etc). Might be zero extras on
    a small site.</li>
  <li>Reserve computer lab for the competition day (usually the first Saturday in October).</li>
  <li>Check that room is accessible, and that lights and ventilation will work
    during the competition.</li>
  <li>If necessary, create system user accounts before contest, and print
    user-names and passwords to hand out.</li>
  <li>Get familiar with the Kattis system, which will be used for submitting
    problems in the contest
    (<a href="https://open.kattis.com/documentation">Instructions for the Kattis contest system</a>, 
    <a href="https://open.kattis.com/documentation/tutorial1">A Kattis tutorial</a>).</li>
  <li>Optional: Organise practice session.</li>
  <li>Optional: Get balloons.</li>
  <li>Optional: Order food.</li>
  <li>Optional: Buy prices.</li>
  <li>Check if department will sponsor trip to the regionals for winning 
    team.</li>
  <li>Optional: Announce the contest during lectures in relevant courses.</li>
  <li>Optional: Put up posters.</li>
  <li>Advance winner to regionals.</li>
</ul>

<h2>Organisation</h2>

<p>
  First of all, you need to tell the national organiser that you are interested
  in hosting the contest at your school or university. 

  <!-- TODO: re-add with new links.
  Then you should
  subscribe to the 
  <a href="https://sympa.uio.no/ifi.uio.no/info/ncpc-info">ncpc-info</a> 
  and <a href="https://sympa.uio.no/ifi.uio.no/info/ncpc-directors">ncpc-directors</a> 
  mailing-lists, to get important announcements. They are a low-traffic list, expect close to the competition.
  -->
  </p>

<p>
  If you think you are going to have more than just a few contestants, you
  should probably get some people to reserve the day for helping out. If there
  are 20 teams, you will not have time to process their submissions, serve them
  pizza, and fix the minor problems that surface all by yourself.
</p>

<h2>Practical issues</h2>

<h3>Reserving a computer lab</h3>
<p>
  You should reserve a computer lab for the contest. Make sure that
  all contestants have access to the lab, and that lights and
  ventilation will be on at the time of the contest. Make sure that
  the computers in the lab have all the needed software.  It is
  important to try to match the versions of compilers used by Kattis
  as much as possible (<a href="https://open.kattis.com/documentation/techinfo">Kattis techinfo</a>).
</p>

<h3>Team registration</h3>
<ol>
  <li> Make sure you have an account at 
    <a href="http://icpc.baylor.edu/">http://icpc.baylor.edu/"</a>:
    <ul>
      <li>If you don't have an account created after april 2008 you need to
      register yourself at 
      <a href="http://icpc.baylor.edu">/http://icpc.baylor.edu/</a>.</li>
      <li>With your personal account you will be able to register/admin your
        teams as coach. But you will also be able to manage your sites if you
        are a site director using the same account.</li>
    </ul>
  </li>
  <li>Registration is done using the ICPC registration system. 
    <ul>
      <li>The teams register themselves and you as the site director
        only need to approve them. To approve a team you log on to the
        ICPC registration
        system <a href="http://icpc.baylor.edu/">http://icpc.baylor.edu/</a>
        and go to the site director part (under contests in the
        dashboard). You have site director access if the NCPC director
        has given you one. Choose "reservations", and mark teams as
        accepted.
      </li>
      <li>A few days before the contest the contest director will send
	out a request for all non ICPC-eligible teams to inform the
	contest directors about it.
      </li>
    </ul>
  </li>
  <!--
  <li>Team registration works as follows:
    <ul>
      <li>Team goes to 
        <a href="http://ncpc.idi.ntnu.no/">http://ncpc.idi.ntnu.no/</a>and
        registers. This is a local system we set up locally for convenience, to
        reduce the work for the coaches.</li>
      <li>You receive an e-mail with the details they filled out (a copy is
        sent to the contest director as well). For this to happen, it is
        important that your e- mail address is in the local system. You can
        check this on the registration page.</li>
      <li>When you want to register some teams, you go to
        <a href="http://icpc.baylor.edu/">http://icpc.baylor.edu/</a>  and
        login. Click on "Dashboard" and your personal dashboard gets visible.
        Under "Teams" in the right menu you can both create new teams or view
        (admin) already created teams.</li>
      <li>NOTE! Make sure you register your teams to the correct site
        (probably your own site): "+Europe Regional Contest", "+Northwestern
        Europe Contest", "+Nordic Collegiate Programming Contest", now you see
        your site!</li>
      <li>NOTE! Only add ICPC-eligible teams in the ICPC-system (the
        non-ICPC-teams you need to handle manually).</li>
      <li>Each contestant on the team will then receive an email from the ICPC
        system, requesting that they complete their information.</li>
    </ul>
  </li>
  <li>Administer your site in the ICPC-system:
    <ul>
      <li>Before the contest, go to the site director part (under
        contests in the dashboard) at 
        <a href="http://icpc.baylor.edu/">http://icpc.baylor.edu/</a>. You have
        site director access if the NCPC director has given you one. Choose
        "reservations", and mark teams as accepted.</li>
    </ul>
  </li>
  -->  
</ol>

<h3>Advertising the contest</h3>
<p>
  How much should advertise the contest depends on how much effort you are
  willing to put into it. Even though the contest is already established and
  well known among some, one of its main goals is to promote the interest in
  programming among all students.
</p>
<p>
  Your can ask lecturers in introductory programming courses, and especially
  in courses focused on algorithms, to give you five minutes to introduce the
  contest. You could perhaps solve an example problem.
</p>
<p>
  If there are e-mail lists for students at your department, you could use
  these. Think of what faculties are relevant (computer science, electrical
  engineering, math, and so on). If you are unsure, ask the administration at
  your department what lists you may use.
</p>
<p>
  It might also be good to put up some posters. Ask your national organiser
  if he has any, or make some yourself.
</p>
<p>
  Remember to tell:
</p>
<ul>
  <li>When is the contest.</li>
  <li>Optional: When is the warm-up round.</li>
  <li>Where will the contest be held.</li>
  <li>Who are allowed to compete.</li>
  <li>Who are qualified to compete (anybody who have taken an introductory
    programming course, or have equivalent skills).</li>
  <li>Whether food will be served during the contest.</li>
  <li>Optional: What the local winners will receive (prizes, trip to
    regionals).</li>
  <li>Where to find more information.</li>
</ul>

<h3>Practice Session (Optional, but recommended)</h3>
<p>
  This should be skipped only if you organise a small site.
</p>
<p>
  Many sites have a practice session a week or so before the contest. It is
  good both for the students and for the organisers. The easiest is to pick a
  problem set from one of:
</p>
<ul>
  <li><a href="http://www.spoj.pl/">SPOJ</a></li>
  <li><a href="http://uva.onlinejudge.org/">UVa Online Judge</a></li>
  <li>ACM ICPC <a href="http://www.acm.inf.ethz.ch/">Problem Set Archive</a>
    (1984-2001)</li>
  <li>ACM ICPC 
    <a href="http://acmicpc-live-archive.uva.es/nuevoportal/">Live Archive</a>
    (2000-now)</li>
</ul>
<p>
  Remember to reserve the computer lab for the practise session also.
</p>
<!--
<p>
    FIXME discuss: Should we have a joined practise session, with PC^2 linked?
    Remember that we should try to minimise the work for the site organisers.
</p>
-->

<h3>Balloons (Optional)</h3>
<p>
  In ACM ICPC contests, it is common that each team get a balloon for each
  task they solve. The balloons are put up at the teams working place. Each
  task correspond to a balloon of a different colour. If possible, get
  balloons filled with helium. At a large site, you need one person just for
  delivering the balloons. Kattis supports output for balloons, but it is also
  advisable to keep paper documentation, especially regarding which team is
  located where, and which team already got balloon for what).  
</p>
<p>
  Balloons are not mandatory.
</p>

<h3>Food (Optional)</h3>
<p>
  If you can get funding, either from your department or the national
  organisation, it is a good idea to serve some food either during or after
  the contest. The easiest and cheapest is probably to buy coke at a
  supermarket and have pizza delivered. If you serve the pizza during the
  contest, check whether you are allowed to eat at the computers in the lab.
  If not, check if there is somewhere close and accessible they can consume
  their pizza. The easiest is maybe to serve the food after the contest, when
  you go through the problems, give out prices etc.  
</p>
<p>
  Remember to keep receipts for all expenses.
</p>

<h3>Prizes (Optional)</h3>
<p>
  Prices for the best local teams are not mandatory. Ask if your department
  can fund it. A good option is books on programming and related topics. 
</p>
<p>
  If you want to, you could also make diplomas for the contestants.
  <!-- FIXME discuss: It would be a convenient feature if diplomas could be
  extracted directly from the online ICPC system. -->
</p>

<h3>Media (Optional)</h3>
<p>
  The contact with media is usually handled by the national coordinator, but
  if your department is interested in the publicity, it is a good idea to
  notify the local media about the contest.
</p>


<h2>Technical information</h2>
<h3>Kattis</h3>
<p>
  The on-line automated judge system <a href="https://open.kattis.com">Kattis</a> is used to run (judge) the contestants' programs (submissions).
  Each contest is a single site on Kattis with a unique link. For example NCPC 2019 had the link <a href="https://ncpc19.kattis.com">https://ncpc19.kattis.com</a>.
  More information about how Kattis works can be found on <a href="https://open.kattis.com/help">the help page</a>.
</p>

<!--
<p>
  The systems only differ in a few respects: NCPC has a more restricted UI
  and only gives a person information about her own submissions. On the
  other hand, the UI does include functionality for asking questions and
  getting answers. 
</p>

<p>
  Normally KATTIS is upp since it is used by several courses at KTH. NCPC
  will most likely only be up twice this fall: once to test the system and
  once to run the contest.
</p>
-->

<p>
  The site director will get accounts for all the contestants the day
  before the contest. The site director will also get 5 extra accounts
  for last minute teams.
</p>

<!--
<p>
  Thus, even if NCPC is not up, they can practice a lot on KATTIS. And you
  can set up a practice session informally for your teams using problems
  from KATTIS (there are a few hundred by now I think). 
</p>

<p>
  Pick the problems, have your teams submit solutions and watch the "Judge
  status" page to see what happens with their submissions.
  You won't get standings this way, and you have to manually check how
  they do, but it has very little overhead for you.
</p>
-->

<h2>During the contest</h2>
Instructions regarding the competition day:
<ol>
  <li>Make sure that each contestant account is reset and only contains
   the sample input and output for all problems (will be distributed
   with the problem set tomorrow).  I suggest you create one directory
   for each problem.  At each work station place three copies of the
   problem set in an envelop.</li>
  
  <li>Read the rules and inform the contestants before the competition
   about what is allowed and what is not.  For example, it is not
   allowed to use any other programming languages and code generation
   tools besides the allowed languages.  The teams are allowed to use those
   shells, editors and IDEs that you provide them with.  The contestants
   may use the documentation provided in Kattis (including STL and Java
   doc) as well as man pages if you have them.</li>

  <li>Before the competition starts the contestants are allowed to log
   in, start a browser, start an editor if they want and log in on
   Kattis.  Nothing else.  No configuration files may be edited and
   the problem set is not to be touched.</li>

  <li>All contest directors should report to me that they are ready to
   start the competition at the latest 10.50 Swedish time.  If you have
   problems please report those as soon as possible. You can report on
   the IRC channel (irc.acc.umu.se#ncpc), through email
   (fredrik.heintz@liu.se), or by calling me (+46-700-89 56 89). Since
   there are many sites this year we will probably start the contest
   even if one or two sites are silent. Unless something unexpected
   happens KTH will make a countdown on the IRC channel and at 11.00.00
   local KTH time the competition will start.
  </li>

  <li>When the contest is started the contestants are allowed to open the
   problem set and start using the computer.  Do your best to monitor
   that they do not use any illegal programs or surf the web.  All the
   documentation that they are allowed to use is linked from their
   Kattis account.</li>

  <li>All clarifications are handled through Kattis.  The head judge
   is responsible for answering all clarifications. They might be
   discussed on IRC if needed.  If the answer is of general interest
   then an email will be sent to all directors.</li>

  <li>When the competition is over and the final result is ready, I will
   announce it on IRC and to all directors by email.  This is expected
   to be shortly after 16.00 unless something unexpected happens.</li>
</ol>


<h2>After the contest</h2>
<h3>Ceremony (Optional)</h3>
<p>
  After the contest, it is nice if you have a small ceremony where you
  announce the results, and give out prices if you have any. If you have the
  opportunity, you should also go through the problems.
</p>

<h3>Advancing teams to NWERC</h3>
<p>
  In some countries, the best team is sponsored by the national organiser to go
  to the regional finals. In addition, the large educational institutions
  sponsor their best team. Check with your national organiser and your
  department what is possible.  
</p>

<p>
  There are three scenarios if you (as a coach) are going to send team(s) to
  NWERC:
</p>

<ol>
  <li>You will only send team(s) that have competed in NCPC:<br/>
    <b>Solution</b>: Use the promoting teams link on your site director part of
    <a href="http://icpc.baylor.edu/">http://icpc.baylor.edu/</a>. If this
    doesn't work - Inform the Contest Manager 
    (<a href="Roy.Andersson@cs.lth.se">Roy.Andersson@cs.lth.se</a>)
    which teams you want to advance and he will take care of this.</li>
  <li>You will send both team(s) that have competed in NCPC and other team(s)
    that haven't:<br/> 
    <b>Solution</b>: Use the promoting teams link on your
    site director part of 
    <a href="http://icpc.baylor.edu/">http://icpc.baylor.edu/</a> for the NCPC
    teams. If this doesn't work - Inform the Contest Manager 
    (<a href="Roy.Andersson@cs.lth.se">Roy.Andersson@cs.lth.se</a>)
    which teams you want to advance and he will take care of this. For the non
    NCPC teams, just register them directly to the regional contest
    (NWERC).</li>
  <li>You will only send teams that haven't competed in NCPC:<br/>
    <b>Solution</b>: Just register your teams directly to the regional contest
    (NWERC).</li>
</ol>


<p>
  <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />
  Editor: <a href="mailto:exoji2e@gmail.com">Måns Magnusson</a><br />
</p>