Quazi Azher Ali National Programming Contest 2010 with Microsoft
For the very first time Microsoft Bangladesh organized a nationwide programming contest in association with Bangladesh University called Quazi Azher Ali National Programming Contest 2010 with Microsoft. Late Quazi Azher Ali was the Founder and Former Vice Chancellor of Bangladesh University. The contest provided University students with opportunities to interact with students from other universities and to sharpen and demonstrate their problem-solving, programming, and teamwork skills. It was a platform for Programming world, industry, and academia to encourage and focus public attention on the next generation of computing professionals as they pursue excellence.
Teams from different universities went to QAA-NPC website to register themselves. So far the site got 5000 hits.
Solutions to problems submitted for judging are called runs. Each run is judged as accepted or rejected by a judge, and the team is notified of the results. Notification of accepted runs may be suspended at an appropriate time to keep the final results secret. A general announcement to that effect will be made during the contest. Notification of rejected runs will continue until the end of the contest. A contestant may submit a claim of ambiguity or error in a problem statement by submitting a clarification request to a judge. If the judges agree that an ambiguity or error exists, a clarification will be issued to all contestants. Contestants are not to converse with anyone except members of their team and personnel designated by the regional Chief Judge. Systems support staff may advise contestants on system-related problems such as explaining system error messages. While the contest is scheduled for a particular time length (typically five hours), the Chief Judge has the authority to alter the length of the contest in the event of unforeseen difficulties. Should the contest duration be altered, every attempt will be made to notify contestants in a timely and uniform manner. A team may be disqualified by the Chief Judge for any activity that jeopardizes the contest such as dislodging extension cords, unauthorized modification of contest materials, or distracting behavior. At least six problems will be posed. So far as possible, problems will avoid dependence on detailed knowledge of a particular applications area or particular contest language.
120 team from 40 universities submitted their participation application and 60 team got the approval to participate. Teams with 3 members and 1 mentor got 5 hours time to solve 10 problems. 56 of them came with at-least one solution and only 1 team was able to solve maximum 7 solutions.
During contest, the teams are given 5 hours to solve between 8 and 12 programming problems. They must submit solutions as programs in any preferred language such as C, C++, C#, or Java. Programs are then run on test data. If a program fails to give a correct answer, the team is notified about that and they can submit another program.The winner is the team which correctly solves most problems. If necessary to rank teams for medals or prizes among tying teams, the placement of teams is determined by the sum of the elapsed times at each point that they submitted correct solutions. For example, consider a situation when two teams, Red and Blue, tie by solving two problems each. The team Red submitted their solutions to A and B at 1:00 and 2:45 after the beginning of the contest. They had a rejected run on C, but it was ignored since they didn't solve C. The team Blue submitted solutions to problems A and C at 1:20 and 2:00 after the beginning. They had one rejected run on C. Then, the total time is 1:00+2:45=3:45 for team Red and 1:20+2:00+0:20=3:40 for team Blue. The tie is broken in favor of Team Blue. Compared to other programming contests (for example, ACM International Collegiate Programming Contest), the QAANPC is characterized by a large number of problems (8 or more problems in just 5 hours). Another feature is that each team can use only one computer, although teams have three students.
The prize for the contest were-
- Champion – BDT 1,00,000.00
- 1st Runner Up – BDT 75,000.00
- 2nd Runner Up – BDT 50,000.00
There were 8 judges who finalize the judgment. A problem is solved when it is accepted by the judges. The judges are solely responsible for accepting or rejecting submitted runs. In consultation with the judges, the Chief Judge determines the winners of the contest. The Chief Judge and judges are empowered to adjust for or adjudicate unforeseen events and conditions. Their decisions are final. Teams are ranked according to the most problems solved. For the purposes of awards, or in determining qualifier(s) for the QAANPC, teams who solve the same number of problems are ranked by least total time. The total time is the sum of the time consumed for each
problem solved. The time consumed for a solved problem is the time elapsed from the beginning of the contest to the submittal of the accepted run plus 20 penalty minutes for every rejected run for that problem regardless of submittal time. There is no time consumed for a problem that is not solved. It is the responsibility of the Chief Judge to specify any additional tie-breakers. Tie-breaker policies must be announced to contestants before the contest begins.