General Orientation

General Information

The official Website for the East Central North America Region of the ACM International Collegiate Programming Contest is: acm.ashland.edu.

Contest Overview

The East Central North America Regional Programming Contest (ECNA RPC) is run under the auspices of the Association for Computing Machinery International Collegiate Programming Contest (ACM ICPC).

• ACM ICPC rules apply. They can be found on their website: icpc.baylor.edu. These rules determine who can participate in the regional, among other things.
• Winners of the regional contests advance to the Finals. Finals are usually held sometime between February and May immediately following the Regional.
• Coaches register teams (see Registration topic that follows). By registering a team, the coach is certifying that the individual team members qualify per the ACM ICPC rules. The team coach may be a faculty member or another person (for example, a graduate student who has participated in a prior contest).

Registration and Fee Payment

Your coach shall add you to a team. After your coach adds you to a team, you shall receive an email message within 2 hours of being added, with instructions on how to add your details to your personal information page. The email message is from "noreply@icpc.baylor.edu", so please watch for it as it may sometimes go to your junk or spam folder. After you add your personal details and click "Save", your registration is complete.

All participants must register. No one may participate who has not completed the required information. Registration will close two weeks prior to the contest. No new teams will be accepted after that date. Team composition and all individual team member registration information should be completed in the ICPC system ONE WEEK PRIOR TO THE CONTEST.

What Can/Should I Bring to the Contest?

At the contest, you will be provided with 1 terminal and 3 printed copies of the problem set. You will be able to print out listings (which are monitored) of the programs you develop during the contest. Other than those items, you must bring your own supplies.

Consider bringing:

• Scratch paper, note pads, or lined paper
• Pencils, pens, markers (more than one; pens run out of ink and pencils break)
• Rulers, protractors
• Kleenex (tissues come in handy when cleaning greasy hands or wiping away tears of defeat)
• Books, manuals, dictionaries
• Printed code (such as libraries or previously solved solutions)

Restrictions during the 5-hour contest:

• You will have no access to the Internet
• Do not (attempt to) tamper with the security of the machines or contest
• You may not have any electronic media with you, including watches with electronic functions
  • If you need a calculator, use the one on the computer (usually xcalc)

We suggest you leave non-permitted items in your car or with your coach. Otherwise the Judges will collect any non-permitted items prior to the Contest, and they assume no liability for loss or damage. You may submit a question in advance if you are not sure about something you would like to bring.