CPC2006 is Co-organized by ACM-HK and the Computing Department of HKPOLYU

click here for contest results and photo album

Supporting Organization : Office of the Government Chief Information Officer

Every year, the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) sponsors regional and international collegiate programming contests. They divide the world up into 16 regions. Each region has a regional contest, with the top two or three teams in each region going on to the international contest.

The format of the contest pits teams of three programmers competing against the clock. The software used for development is scheduled to be based on Microsoft Windows XP with Visual Studio.NET 2003 and Java 1.5.007 with Netbean 5.0. Each team is given six programming problems. They then try to write programs to solve as many of these problems as possible in the allotted time (scheduled to be four hours). The team that correctly solves the most problems wins. If multiple teams solve the same number of problems, the team that solved them fastest wins. Expertise in quick-and-dirty hacking is usually more valuable than rigid software engineering techniques in such an environment. Experience with debugging stupid mistakes is also a plus.

Since 1991, the ACM Hong Kong Chapter has been organizing a local contest in Hong Kong, following the ACM contests in terms of aims, format, and style. This year, the Programming Contest will be held on July 29, 2006 at the Hong Kong Polytechnic University. Twenty four teams will be invited from the eight tertiary institutes in Hong Kong and Macau: The Chinese University of Hong Kong, The City University of Hong Kong, The Lingnan University, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, The University of Hong Kong, The Hong Kong Baptist University, and The University of Macau. Each department of a participating institution can nominate up to three teams to take part in the contest. Teams will then be selected by the CPC organizing committee according to the priorities indicated by the individual department, making sure that the participating teams will be evenly distributed among the departments, with no single institution sending more than three teams.

Last year, the Collegiate Programming Contest was held on July 14, 2005 at the University of Hong Kong, and a team from the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology won the contest. Click here for the results of past CPCs.

For more contest information (problem set), you can download contest '94, contest '95, contest '98, contest '00, contest '01, contest '02 or the contest '03. You can also obtain a copy of the contestant guide.

Collegiate Programming Contest 2006 Committee

Hong-va Leong, Chair, Hong Kong Polytechnic University

Rundown on July 29, 2006 (Saturday)
10:45 - 11:15 Registration at PQ602 Hong Kong Polytechnic University
11:15 - 12:00 Preparation and testing of machines
12:00 - 13:45 Lunch
13:50 - 14:00 Competition preparation
14:00 - 18:00 Competition
18:30 - 21:30 Dinner and award presentation
Venue: China Garden, 4th floor, Communal Building, HKPolyU
( Number 28 on campus map of HKPolyU )

Pls click this link to access Team Registration form

Please send the team registration information to
Hong-va LEONG
Department of Computing
Hong Kong Polytechnic University
Hung Hom, Kowloon

Fax: 27740842

email: cshleong@comp.polyu.edu.hk