Rules/Eligibility
General ICPC Rules
Most of the rules for Regional Finals are governed by the ACM ICPC. You can find the general rules here.
Who Can Participate?
While any ICPC-eligible team can compete in the Divisionals Contest, the Regional Finals is an invite-only event. Firstly, to be invited, your entire team must be ICPC eligible.
Advancing from Divisionals Contest to Regional Finals
Invitations to the Regional Finals will be awarded to 12 teams who compete in the Divisionals Contest. There will be one Divisionals Contest where everyone in the region will compete. The teams that advance to the Regional Finals will be determined by the following process:
- Selection Step I: The top 2 universities from each Division will qualify for the Regional Finals. (6 teams total will advance this way)
- Selection Step II: After removing the teams that qualified in Selection Step I from the scoreboard, a further 6 teams are selected from the scoreboard in rank order, excluding any teams that would breach the constraint that at most 2 teams from any one University can compete in the Regional Finals.
- Select Step III The Boersen prize, which selects up to one additional team for Regionals, will be offered to the top team containing only female competitors who were not selected in Selection Steps I or II.The selected team must also be placed in the top 30 teams at Divisionals. It is possible that a University may have a third team selected under this selection step.
- Selection Step IV: Further spot(s) may be awarded via a wildcard position.
- Everyone will compete in one contest on one scoreboard (not 3 contests like previous years).
- Which Division you are in has not changed (see the map on the Regional Finals website).
- A team's Division is ignored in Selection Step II.
- At most one team from each university may advance via Selection Step I.
- At most two teams from each university may advance from the Divisionals Contest to the Regional Finals (this includes teams from both Selection Step I and II).
Example
| Place | Team Name | University | Division | Qualified for Regional Finals? |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1st | Team 1 | University of A | Eastern | Yes — First place university in Eastern Division |
| 2nd | Team 2 | University of B | Central | Yes — First place university in Central Division |
| 3rd | Team 3 | University of C | Western | Yes — First place university in Western Division |
| 4th | Team 4 | University of B | Central | Yes — Selection Step II (1/6) |
| 5th | Team 5 | University of D | Western | Yes — Second place university in Western Division |
| 6th | Team 6 | University of E | Eastern | Yes — Second place university in Eastern Division |
| 7th | Team 7 | University of C | Western | Yes — Selection Step II (2/6) |
| 8th | Team 8 | University of F | Central | Yes — Second place university in Central Division |
| 9th | Team 9 | University of G | Central | Yes — Selection Step II (3/6) |
| 10th | Team 10 | University of H | Eastern | Yes — Selection Step II (4/6) |
| 11th | Team 11 | University of I | Western | Yes — Selection Step II (5/6) |
| 12th | Team 12 | University of C | Western | No — Two teams from University of C already advanced |
| 13th | Team 13 | University of H | Eastern | Yes — Selection Step II (6/6) |
| 14th | Team 14 | University of A | Eastern | No — Only 12 teams will advance via Selection Step I and II |
The Boersen prize
Ms. Raewyn Boersen, previous South Pacific Director, Founder, and recipient of the Mark Measures Distinguished Service Award, has contributed significantly to the International Collegiate Programming Contest (ICPC) for over 30 years. Raewyn has built a strong community that enabled young computer scientists in Australia and New Zealand to showcase their problem solving skills internationally. She has also encouraged young women to explore the fun in computer programming. The Boersen Prize celebrates Raewyn’s work and legacy for the South Pacific Region. The Prize encourages women participation in the South Pacific Regional Finals.Wildcard Awards to Regional Finals
After the 12 teams have been decided upon, additional wildcard positions may be awarded to some teams. There is no guarantee that any wildcard positions will be given. The Regional Contest Director will award wildcard positions where appropriate.In the case that multiple teams qualify for the Growth Award, preference will be given to the team from a site that has the largest growth ratio, defined as X/Y where X=(Number of teams that competed in Divisionals at that site) and Y=(Teams Needed to Qualify at that site), and then preference to the highest ranked team.
Advancing from Regional Finals to World Finals
- Only one team is guaranteed to qualify for the World Finals. However, normally, our region is awarded 2-3 World Finals spots.
- If our region is awarded x spots at World Finals, the top x universities from the Regional Finals will qualify for the World Finals.
- Under no circumstances (including wildcard positions) may more than one team from any given university advance to the World Finals.
Materials During The Contest
For both the Regional Finals and the Divisionals Contest, contestants are allowed to bring with them any amount of printed material. No electronic devices of any kind are allowed in the contest room. Please leave them at home or with your coach. Such forbidden electronic items include: USB sticks, cell phones, calculators, advanced watches, etc.
Programming Environment
The Regional contest will use DOMjudge to facilitate the contest. The development environment on site is usually a standard install of Debian with standard installed editors/IDEs available. The only programming languages supported at the Regional Finals are C/C++, Java and Python.
Caution About Python
Although you may use Python, a solution in Python is not guaranteed to exist. To be specific, it may be possible that the fastest Python solution may not be fast enough to solve some problems, so use Python at your own risk. It is guaranteed that there is a solution in C++ and Java for each problem.
Compiler Specifications (Subject to change)
See contest.sppregional.org for details about the compilers and run-time environments for languages.
Contest Fees
There is no entry fee to compete in the Regional Finals, but it is the responsibility of each team to pay for travel to the Regional Finals location.
Tie-Breakers
If two teams tie (that is, solve the same number of problems while consuming the same total time), the most recent World Final's tiebreakers will be used. As of 2017, the tiebreaker is the earliest time of submittal of the last accepted run.
