CSCI 498:  C³ - Competitive Coding Class

Registration Information

Term/Year	Class  Number	Section	Act	Days	Time	Room	Instructor
Fall 2007	8206	CSCI 498C-01	SEM	T	0500-0750	OCNL 431	Juliano

Description

This course is based on Dr. Skiena's SUNY at Stony Brook course, CSE 392, Programming Challenges; hence, "[t]his course will introduce an interesting variety of subjects in programming, algorithms, and discrete mathematics through puzzles and problems which have appeared in the ACM International Collegiate Programming Contest (ICPC) and similar venues."

The course meets once a week where students are immersed in a simulated ICPC environment. 

Prerequisites

CSCI 112 or permission of instructor.

Required Reading

1. Fabian Ernst, Jeroen Moelands, and Seppo Pieterse. 1996. "Teamwork in Programming Contests: 3 * 1 = 4." Crossroads, 3(2), 17-19.
2. Shahriar Manzoor. 2001. "Common Mistakes in Online and Real-Time Contests." Crossroads, 7(5), 4.
3. Andrew Trotman and Chris Handley. 2006. "Programming Contest Strategy." Computers & Education (to appear).

Additional Requirements

	Students officially registered for the course will have their own Chico State Connection (CSC Portal) account.
	Students are responsible for regularly checking their WebCT Vista account (automatically generated through the CSC Portal) to access an up-to-date on-line calendar of events, current scores, on-line quizzes, etc.
	Students are required to register (create an account) with the UVa Online Judge at http://icpcres.ecs.baylor.edu/onlinejudge/ in order to participate in any of the Challenges in this class. The UVa Online Judge will be used for (automatic evaluations of) submissions to problems being considered at a Challenge. Problems used in Challenges will come from the UVa Online Judge archives. Hence, it is to a student's advantage to practice with this online tool whenever possible.

Objectives

1. to get students used to the ICPC competition format;
2. to get students used to working in teams in an effective, efficient, and efficacious manner; and
3. to mentor students and provide them with practice, Practice, PRACTICE!!!

Grade Evaluation

Students will be graded based on their dedication, involvement, and participation in all activities in class. All solutions to programming challenges will be collected. Student performance in class may be used to determine ranking of students or groups based on current ICPC scoring methods. Each week, only the names of the Top 3 students will be announced. At the discretion of either the instructor, the department, or the college, the top student finishers at regular intervals (e.g. monthly) or overall at the end of the semester may be awarded prizes.

	80%		Student participation
	20%		Student performance (based on ICPC scoring methodology)

Final Grades

This is a Credit/No Credit course. Students who exhibit motivation (show of effort) and desire to learn, and participate in all class activities, should have no problems earning Credit for this course.

General Policies

Dr. J has some general policies (see http://www.ecst.csuchico.edu/~juliano/Teaching/Policies.html) that apply to all courses that he teaches. Students are expected to read and understand these policies upon registration of the course.

Topical Coverage

Here is an up-to-date list of problems we have considered/discussed this Fall 2007 semester:

Date	Problem Name and Notes	Source / Reference
Aug 30	The 3n+1 Problem     - see dynamic programming		Valladolid Online Judge / Problem Set Archive (UVa)
	The Blocks Problem     - see disjoint set ADT		Valladolid Online Judge / Problem Set Archive (UVa)
Sept 4	Ecological Bin Packing Problem     - see bin packing		Valladolid Online Judge / Problem Set Archive (UVa)
Sept 11	Challenge A		Valladolid Online Judge / Problem Set Archive (UVa)
Sept 18	Challenge B		Valladolid Online Judge / Problem Set Archive (UVa)
Sept 25	Challenge C		Valladolid Online Judge / Problem Set Archive (UVa)