ACM Boston Preliminary (BOSPRE 2017)
Programming Contest Home Page

BOSPRE 2017 will be on Saturday Oct 14.
Remember there is a $75 per team entrance fee payable by check or cash (MIT can ONLY accept a CHECK made payable to MIT) - please make provision for this.
All teams have been sent their accounts (via email to the coach). The list of accounts is here.
IMPORTANT: You must bring laptops to MIT and Brandeis.
Host site details are here: MIT UConn Brandeis
The practice problems are here.
IMPORTANT: Each team must have a team leader responsible for enforcint some of the rules here.
NEW RULE: This year you will be permitted to access the web during the contest in order to find information that will help you solve problems. The complete set of rules is here
NEW FEATURE: This year there will be `practice problems' that can be done DURING as well as before the contest. You can get help on coding these during the contest, but they will not count on the scoreboard. This is for teams new to programming contests or the BOSPRE environment who need help working through examples. Details are here
NEW PROBLEM SELECTION: This year BOSPRE problems are being selected to include 3 easy problems, 3 medium difficulty regional level problems, and 4 world final level problems. If you want to do well on the regional level problems, you should familiarize youself with the common algorithms in one of the following:
- Introduction to Algorithms, by Cormen, Leiserson, Rivest, and Stein, MIT Press, HARDCOPY EDITION.
  Note: The paperback edition is printed on somewhat transparent paper in India and and it is a contract violation to sell it in the US. Also most hardcopy editions sold by independent booksellers on Amazon are similar. Best to buy hardcopy from Amazon itself if you want a non-pirated edition with standard quality paper.
- Algorithm Design, by Kleinberg and Tardos, Pearson Education.
- Algorithms, by S. Dasgupta, C. H. Papadimitriou, and U. V. Vazirani, McGraw-Hill, available free on-line here
The last two books have no geometry section, so if you use them supplement them with this.
IMPORTANT: YOU ARE RESPONSIBLE for PRINTING AND BRINGING programming language specific help and demo files, which are valuable guides to contest input/output programming. Printable pdf files are available on the Help Page.
This year, like last year, BOSPRE will support PYTHON with the caveat that it may not be fast enough for the algorithmic harder problems.


University of Connecticut Host Site for BOSPRE 2017

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 2017!
ANOTHER IMPORTANT RULE: You may register teams that decide not to come, by changing the team name on the ACM registration page to `Please Delete'; BUT, you must decide by the 12noon of the Sunday ONE WEEK BEFORE the contest and make your decision known by then. If you say you are coming as of 12noon the Sunday one week before the contest, please actually come, as space will be reserved for you and food will be ordered for you.
Also, if you want to rename your team, please do so by 12noon on the Sunday ONE WEEK BEFORE the contest.
Registration: Please register your teams for the contest at the ACM Programming Contest web site, and click on `Coach' under `I am a'. 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 14. You may register a team that decides not to come or change your team name later provided you do so before 12noon on the Sunday ONE WEEK BEFORE the contest (see above).
To see which teams registered for BOSPRE 2017 and other Northeastern sites go here.


MIT Building 52 Host Site for BOSPRE 2017

All registered teams will be 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, and please print the help and demo files specific to the programming language(s) you want to use, and bring these printouts with you to the contest. It is also possible to use the practice facility without an account, by emailing problem solutions to the facility autojudge.
BOSPRE 2017 is a cooperative effort between TO BE DETERMINED, which are the host sites, and Harvard, which provides judging and problems using the net.
When you register for BOSPRE 2017 you will NOT be assigned a hosting site. This will be done by the BOSPRE 2017 managers the weekend before the contest. 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 2017 will have multiple hosting sites, there will be only one scoreboard and all teams at all BOSPRE 2017 hosting sites will be competing against each other.


Brandeis University Host Site for BOSPRE 2017

Harvard teams will attend BOSPRE (to save travel money). To avoid conflict of interest, Bob Walton will not coach the Harvard teams for BOSPRE (but will for the Regionals). To provide approprate practice for everyone who wants it, the last 2 (or 3 if requested) BOSPRE contests will be made available as practice contests to ALL teams registered for BOSPRE. Your coach will be sent account names and passwords for these practice contests when they are available.
There is a BOSPRE Practice Facility that is up year-round.
Each member of each team, BEFORE the team arrives at the contest, should read the following help files:
You should also read the help and demos files specific to your programming language that are on the Help Page.
Of course its OK to not do this if you are less concerned about being competitive.
IMPORTANT: You are responsible for printing from the web any language (C, C++, JAVA, PYTHON) specific help and demos files you need, and bringing them to the contest. Printouts of the above listed non-language specific help files will be provided to you at the contest.
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 coaches<bospre@seas.harvard.edu> (be sure to include the `coaches').
The Northeastern North America Regional web page is here.
Last year's BOSPRE 2016 web page is still hanging around: here.
To contact the managers of BOSPRE 2017, email adm<bospre@seas.harvard.edu> (be sure to include the `adm').

ACM Boston Preliminary (BOSPRE 2017) Programming Contest Home Page

ACM Boston Preliminary (BOSPRE 2017)
Programming Contest Home Page