Frequently Asked Questions
Team Formation
People of all ages may participate, but only teams composed solely of high school/middle school students are eligible for prizes (we may have an additional award for non-eligible participants). Students may form teams of up to three, and are allowed to discuss in-contest, access the internet, and use reference books. However, communication between teams is strictly forbidden during the contest window, and any teams identified as having done so will be disqualified. You can create two separate teams for the Standard and CTF rounds if you have different teammates.
Standard Round
Format
The standard round's format is similar to USACO. You are given 8 problems and 3 hours to solve them. You can complete this round at any time during our 5-day contest window. For the first three problems, the difficulty will be about bronze to silver USACO level, focusing less on efficiency and more on the ability to program. As for the last five problems, their difficulties will be approximately gold to platinum, and only well-optimized programs can pass.
The standard round's format is similar to USACO. You are given 8 problems and 3 hours to solve them. You can complete this round at any time during our 5-day contest window. For the first three problems, the difficulty will be about bronze to silver USACO level, focusing less on efficiency and more on the ability to program. As for the last five problems, their difficulties will be approximately gold to platinum, and only well-optimized programs can pass.
Each problem will have 10 testcases, and each correct testcase will be worth 10 points. Only the last submission for a problem will count for your score, and time penalty will be determined by the last submission, not last score-increasing submission.
Scoring
Participants are allowed to submit their program in the following 3 languages: C++17, Java 11, or Python 3.6.9. After submission, you are immediately given feedback. However, similar to USACO, you won't know exactly where you're wrong. Instead, you will receive one of the following 4 results: C (Correct), W (Wrong Answer), T (Time Limit Exceeded), or R (Runtime Error/Memory Limit Exceed).
CTF Round
In CTF, you are given a set of cybersecurity challenges from several topics: Web Exploitation,
Forensics, Reverse Engineering, Cryptography, Binary Exploitation, etc. You will need to solve
the challenge to capture a flag, which you submit for points. You can learn more from our CTF Resources. Unlike the Standard Round's 3 hour duration, you can access the CTF Round and submit flags
during the entire 3-day contest window.
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