Most of these notes are for the site coordinator, but some apply to the judges as well. There are notes for before, during, and after the contest.
Each year one of the three regional chief judges will act as the contest-day point of contact to handle all questions and corrections. This year your contact is Eric Shade from Southwest Missouri State University. You can email him at EricShade@smsu.edu or phone him at 417-836-4944.
1. Make sure that the IDE and command-line versions of your compilers are the same and use the same options for code generation, memory model, etc. The students will probably use the IDE, but the judges will probably use the command-line compilers. If you are using a recent Borland C/C++ compiler, note that bcc is the 16-bit compiler and bcc32 is the 32-bit compiler; use whichever one matches the settings of the IDE. If you are using a Windows compiler, make sure it is set to generate a text-mode application, not a GUI application. See Site Compiler Requirements for more information.
2. The judging utilities assume that the command-line versions of the compilers are on the path. See Using the Judging Utilities for more information.
3. Make sure you have a program that can create .zip files. The judges will need this at the end of the contest to send Eric files for the top-ranked teams. If you need a zip program, there are nice free ones available at ftp://ftp.freesoftware.com/pub/infozip/index.html.
4. If your compiler has multiple options for creating a project and there is a chance that a team might use the wrong one, prepare a hand-out for each team explaining how to use the compiler.
5. Have ACMIO.class available for Java programmers. You can either publicize a readable place on your network where it is placed, or copy it onto a floppy disk supplied to the teams. (Except for this file, all floppy disks supplied to teams should be blank.) There is a copy on the judging disk with path \JUDGE\ACMIO.class. Also, you can compile the source file available at http://www.math.luc.edu/~anh/ACM99.
1. Each team packet will contain a copy of each problem, a description of the error messages used in judging, and Notes to Teams. Teams will not receive a copy of the tie-breaking rules, so during the pre-contest meeting you should tell them that there are rules for breaking ties to determine regional winners (those that advance to the finals) and post a copy of the rules on the notice board. You should also decide what rules you want to use to break ties at your site, and tell them those as well. We recommend that you do not break ties at the site level, but it's up to you.
2. If you prepared a hand-out for teams in Step 4 above, distribute it and discuss it at the pre-contest meeting, and post a copy on the notice board.
3. Security Issues. Do not hand out floppies to teams until they are in their rooms at 12:15. If necessary have your runners distribute the floppies. Also, fill out the judging request forms in advance with the team number and problem, so that teams cannot collaborate and submit problems for a different team. We don't expect teams to cheat, but we do want to take all the simple precautions that we can.
4. You will need to appoint a local Head Judge, and in addition you will need two Witnesses (described below). All three must be team sponsors from different schools.
5. All contest-day administration (entering scores, getting results, asking questions, being notified of corrections, ...) will occur via the Web site at http://www.cs.smsu.edu/~rcjudge. Call Eric at 417-836-4944 at 12:15 to get your site password so that you can enter scores. (Other sites will be calling at about the same time, so keep trying until you get through.) The Web page is fairly self-explanatory, but if you're having trouble, call or email Eric. Be sure to check the site regularly for corrections and updates, even if you have no scores to enter.
5:30 Finish Entering Scores
The Web scoring system will allow updates until approximately 5:45. There
will be people running around everywhere at 5:30, so make sure that no one
other than the judges has access to the machines you are using to enter
scores. Either lock the door (and perhaps post a sign) or have someone block
the entrance until you are done. Once you have entered all scores, carefully
double-check the scores for any of your teams that are ranked in the top 12 in
the region.
5:45 Email Solutions for Top-ranked Teams
The Head Judge and two Witnesses will need to send Eric solutions from
all teams that are unofficially ranked in the top 12 for the region.
(The top nine teams will get prizes from IBM.) All three should work
together on this so that there are no mistakes and no foul play.
If you have any teams ranked in the top 12 in the region, send Eric
an email message with the following information:
Make sure that you zip up the correct files. Some teams may have multiple programs on the same disk, so don't accidentally send an old copy. Eric will reply to your email with a confirmation that he got everything OK, and then he will use this information to verify the final rankings. Official final rankings will be posted by Monday.
If you do not have a team ranked in the top 12 in the region, you do not need to send anything.
Keep all contest materials (all judging sheets and time logs, diskettes for correct problems, and all of the backups created by the judging utilities) at your site for at least a month in case any problems arise.