College-level coding competitions?

ACM is just about the best way to start. Get a chapter chartered and get that going. Of course, it's ACM.org.

ACM has a lot of other benefits, and if you are committed enough to compete in programming contests, I think you will also want to take advantage of the other benefits as well.

Thank you for your reply. I am reading through the website now but I am concerned that it may be too late in the year to start a chapter up. Am I right in this assumption?

Quote:

Original post by uber_n00b Thank you for your reply. I am reading through the website now but I am concerned that it may be too late in the year to start a chapter up. Am I right in this assumption?

Yes. You'll have to start it in the beginning of the next semister.

Well, almost any U.S. university with a decent C.S. program will already have an ACM chapter. Either way, regionals are coming up very soon, and most schools have most likely already had their preliminary competitions to see who they will send to compete, so you will probrably have to wait until next year.

On an unrelated note...

capn_midnight, I don't like your avatar. You should've gone with the Zorro, because Zorro is a p.i.m.p.

*goes to ACM.org*
*seppukku*

Ironically, the ACM programming competition is being administered through TopCoder's interface this year, so expect similar questions.

Dude, I just got back from a campus coding competition. Won third place...looked like I was going to win first in the beginning, but I choked and two others caught up...the second place guy beat me in the last five minutes :(...

But, yeah, ACM...I'm going to a state meet on November 4th, heh.

I just found out that my University founded a chapter over 30 years ago :). Unfortunately, it seems to be little more than a few workshops. They made no mention of regionals on their site which is a real shame.

Quote:

Original post by mnansgar Ironically, the ACM programming competition is being administered through TopCoder's interface this year, so expect similar questions.

What region do you live in? My ACM region is using PC^2, just like every year for the past...forever.

yeah, we're using PC^2 this year. Our warmup for the regionals is coming up this week (wednesday).

As for the avatar, it's me.

As for the ACM chapter, if you have lost the charter, get the paperwork started now. It will be so much easier to get the paperwork done now and then submit it later.

All I can suggest is to start a local club for programming team, and worry about registration later. You really need to get people together and start practicing together. What you will find is that you want a coder, a mathematician, and a manager on each team, basically (since 3 is the max). The mathematician will solve the problems, the coder will implement them, and the manager will make sure the coder and mathematician don't obsess over stupid problems, keeping an eye on the clock.

There are a number of different programming contests over the course of the year, so don't think that missing this semester means you have to wait until next year. Get together with your professors as well (someone has to be the coach, and it's not going to be a student). Your university probably requires that ever club have a faculty sponsor or two anyway. They can also help you contact other schools to see if they are running any contests.

You could also run an invitational contest. After you have been to a few and get an idea of how they are ran, you can hold your own (probably next year) and invite other universities in your area to come.

Oh, and grad students can't compete, usually (it's very rare to allow them to compete). It's just da rules.

Incidentally, I'm currently the VP of our programming team, and President of the ACM chapter.