This weekend, programmers from all over Europe will be gearing up to compete in the 5'th Catalysts Coding Coding Contest (CCC'11). This year, the theme is Astronautics. The contest will be held on May 27'th at the Castle of Linz in Linz, Austria and at Babes Bolyai University in Cluj-Napoca, Romania. The competition is also open to online participants.
The rules are simple: Individuals or teams of up to three people will be given a series of challenging problems that must be solved as quickly as possible. In the past, only time to complete the problem was considered, but this year they are adding a time credit for the team with the "best solution". For each level, the problem is described and the inputs are given. As a contestant, you must conceive of a proper solution and produce the correct output in order to advance to the next level. How you get there is completely up to you. You may use any computational means at your disposal. You could use an Excel spreadsheet or even a sheet of paper if that's what works for you.
"In recent years, we have had great problems in genetics as well as challenging puzzles and kernel algorithms for social networks. This year it's about space travel."
say contest organizers Christoph Steindl and Christian Federspiel. They have worked closely with the Austrian Space Forum to prepare the problems for this year's contestants.
The top three coders/teams (from Linz, Cluj-Napoca, and Catalysts intern) will visit the European Space Research and Technology Center (ESTEC) in the Netherlands). There will also be prize money and a raffle amongst the Linz contestants for 2 Apple iPads and 1 Microsoft Kinect. Online contestants will not be eligible for prizes – they compete for glory alone.
