
Tufts Halligan Hall Host Site for BOSPRE 2008

ACM Boston Preliminary (BOSPRE 2008)
Programming Contest Home Page

BOSPRE 2008 will be Saturday Oct 18.
Host site details are here: Brown Tufts
McGill, Middlebury, Tufts, and Merrimack are going to Tufts. All other teams are going to Brown. Account assignments for the contest are here.
All registered teams have been given a practice account for the BOSPRE Practice Facility. Please use this to familiarize yourself with the programming environment and contest procedures before you come. Also please see the help files below before you come.


Center for Information Technology Brown University Host Site for BOSPRE 2008

IMPORTANT RULE: ACM requires that each individual team member have COMPLETED their registration at the ACM Programming Contest web site BEFORE the team comes to BOSPRE 2008!
The coach must add members to each team. To do that log in at icpc.baylor.edu, go to `Dashboard' and your team, click on `New/Existing Person', and if the person does not already have an account, click on `Toggle New/Existing Person'. Fill out the email address and name of the contestant.
Once a team member is added, the team member must log in and complete her/his registration. THIS MUST BE DONE BEFORE BOSPRE 2008. The team member has an account created when the coach added the member to the team. The account name is the email address of the team member, as given by the coach. When the coach creates the account, the team member will receive an email from `noreply@icpc.baylor.edu' containing the password for the account. IF YOU DO NOT RECEIVE THIS, you MUST go to icpc.baylor.edu, click on `Login', click on `Forgot your password', give your email address (also your account name), and click on `Remind Me'. You will then get your password in email as above.
To complete registration, log in at icpc.baylor.edu, then click on `Profile' (upper right), and then fill in the missing information.
WARNING: Occassionally the emails containing passwords have been delayed by up to 2 days for reasons that are not understood. The best thing is to be sure EACH student has her/his password several days before the BOSPRE 2008.
WARNING: If a contestant cannot log in and complete registration before BOSPRE 2008, the contestant can only compete if she/he receives special dispensation from the organizer of the contest or of the contest site. As soon as practical the contestant must complete registration, and the contestant and coach will by hounded until this is done.

To see which teams registered for BOSPRE 2008 and other Northeastern sites go here, then click on North America in the map under `Regional Contest Info Finder', then on `Northeastern', then on `BOSPRE' (toward the bottom of the page), and then on `Reservations'. (The new ACM software calculates web pages dynamically so there is no direct persistant link to the BOSPRE reservations.)
BOSPRE 2008 is a cooperative effort between Tufts University and Brown University, which are the host sites, and Harvard, which provides judging and problems using the net. Since Harvard provides the judging, in order to avoid the appearance of conflict of interest, Harvard will not attend BOSPRE 2008; it will go elsewhere (probably to WNEC). The teams of the schools hosting the contest will attend BOSPRE 2008, as hosting schools will not be involved in judging. Coaches from non-hosting schools are sometimes needed to help at hosting schools during contest day.
Registration: Please register your teams for the contest at the ACM Programming Contest web site, and click on `Sign Up for ICPC' under `Register for Regionals Now'. You do NOT need to know your team members to register your teams, nor do you need to have choosen final team names (they can be changed). You should register early to get on our mailing list and get practice accounts. You WILL need to have your student team members register individually BEFORE Oct 18 (i.e., before BOSPRE 2008).
When you register for BOSPRE 2008 you will NOT be assigned a hosting site. This will be done by the BOSPRE 2008 managers much later. Some issues are: (1) some hosting sites are easier for some teams to drive to than other sites, (2) some teams may be able to travel by subway or bus to some sites but not others, and (3) two teams from the same school go to the same hosting site.
Although BOSPRE 2008 will have multiple hosting sites, there will be only one scoreboard and all teams at all BOSPRE 2008 hosting sites will be competing against each other.
There will be $75 per team registration fee. Note this has been raised from the previous $50 which was in effect until 2007. It needs to be high enough so the team and coach can be well feed by a caterer.
Each member of each team, BEFORE the team arrives at the contest, should read the following help files. Of course its OK to not do this if you are less concerned about being competitive.
- help/this_contest
- help/formal_contest
- help/xterminals This applies to some host sites but not others.
- help/solving
- help/input
- help/output
- help/print
- demos/count/README
- demos/count/count.txt
- demos/count/Makefile
- demos/count/count.in
- demos/count/count.test
- One of the solutions to the demo, choosing from
- help/scores
- help/scoreboard
- help/c++ if you are programming in C++.
- help/java and demos/javaio/javaio.java if you are programming in JAVA.
- help/advice
Note it is very desirable to read some of the following:
Here are postscript files for producing the handouts you will be given at the contest: help files and demos files. These will be given to you when you check in at the contest, but you are supposed to read the files listed specifically above BEFORE you get to the contest.
Here is some info on Boston overnight accommodations.
No activities are planned for team coaches, but if any want to plan something, e.g., lunch, they can email all the BOSPRE team coaches at once at the mail drop bospre-people@seas.harvard.edu
The Northeastern North America Regional web page is here.
The BOSPRE teams that advance to regionals will earn a wall plaque for their school. E.g., see last year's plaques.
The is a BOSPRE Practice Facility that is up year-round.
Last year's BOSPRE 2007 web page is still hanging around: here.
To contact the managers of BOSPRE 2008, email bospre-manage@seas.harvard.edu
For the curious, the Harvard Division of Engineering and Applied Sciences (DEAS) has changed its name to the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS), so for the next several years `seas' and `deas' can be use interchangeably.

ACM Boston Preliminary (BOSPRE 2008) Programming Contest Home Page

ACM Boston Preliminary (BOSPRE 2008)
Programming Contest Home Page