Sponsored by IBM

Bucharest October 19th, 2002

The Department of Computer Science and Engineering from the POLITEHNICA University of Bucharest had the honor to organize the 2002-2003 ACM Southeastern European Regional Programming Contest.

There were 59 programming teams registered, from Bulgaria, Bosnia and Herzegovina Greece, Macedonia, Moldova, Romania, Ukraine, and Yugoslavia.

In the Southeastern European Region were accepted 49 teams.

UKRAINE

with 6 problems solved and a penalty of 848 points.

The second place was awarded to:

with 6 problems solved and a penalty of 914 points.

The third place was awarded to:

BULGARIA

with 6 problems solved and a penalty of 980 points.

The teams were required to solve 8 programming problems in 5 hours using one of C, C++, Java or Pascal programming languages. There were 5 team with 6 solved problems, 5 teams with 5 solved problems, 7 teams with 4 solved problems. Most of the teams only solved 3 problems. We consider that the set of problems was difficult enough.

The computers the contest was run on were IBM-PCs Pentium IV, 128 MB RAM, 1,6GHz, 40 GB HDD, interconnected through a network and running Linux and Windows 2000. They were provided by FORTE Computers.

The site of the contest was the main hall of the "Rectorat" building, POLITEHNICA University.

The evaluation of the results and the scoring were based on the Personal Computer Programming Contest program (PC²) v7.6, developed at the Computer Science Department, Sacramento, California State University. The use of PC² allowed a smooth run of the contest and facilitated the activity of judges and runners.

The 49 teams totaled a number of 147 students. There were more than 30 staff members and more than 50 volunteers who contributed to the organization and run of the contest.

The first three teams received prizes sent by IBM

The first three teams, judges and contest management team received presents from IBM.

HOUR : East European Time (GMT+2)

Thursday October 17th: Arrival and Check-in

Friday October 18th: Contestants’ Meeting

8:00 - 12:00 Teams arrival and Registration (Rectorat Building)

14:00 Opening Ceremony, AN 010 - Rectorat Building

Speakers:

14:30 - 15:00 Break

15:00 - 16:00 Briefing with faculty advisors,students and volunteers

Review the rules

Introduction to the practice session

16:00 - 19:00 Practice Session

Saturday October 19th Big Day – The contest !

09:00 - 09:30 Arriving at contest site

09:15 - 09:30 Briefing with faculty advisors

19:00 Award Ceremony – Banquet

08:30 - 18:00 Sightseeing

The contest budget was raised using funds from IBM and local contributors.

FORTE Computers provided the hardware infrastructure and technical support.

Ministry of National Education through POLITEHNICA University of Bucharest helped us with the accommodation for Romanian Students.

The companies: FORTE Computers, REL Computer, BCR, ROMSYS, CISCO Romania, IPROLAM, Corner Soft Technologies, Microsoft Romania, Coca Cola, HP Romania, SIVECO

contributed with financial support.

Participation in the contest was free of charge. Also, the buffets, the banquet, and the tour of Bran and Sinaia were free of charge for the foreign teams.

Upon registration, each participant received a contest folder containing: a contest badge, a set of the contest rules, a contestant's guide for PC², a timetable, a map of Bucharest. During the Award Ceremony, Certificates of Participation or Recognition were given to all participants and volunteers. Everybody was very excited upon receiving the certificates, especially the volunteers, thus proving that the ACM idea of offering certificates was highly appreciated.

The day before the Opening Ceremony, IBM Romania organized a press conference attended by more than 40 journalists from the Romanian mass-media. Many press releases were issued, both before and after the contest. Several newspapers published announcements or presentations of the event. National Romanian TV, PRIMA TV, and other broadcast companies transmitted information about the contest in their main news program.

The members of the Steering Committee were:

• Lorina Negreanu

The members of the judging team were:

We would also like to express our thanks to ACM and to IBM Corporation, FORTE Computers for providing us with the hardware infrastructure, to the Romanian Society for Informatics, to the Romanian Chapter of ACM, to POLITEHNICA University, and to the local contributors: FORTE Computers, REL Computer, BCR, ROMSYS, CISCO Romania, IPROLAM, Corner Soft Technologies, Microsoft Romania, Coca Cola, HP Romania, SIVECO

for their generous support for the ACM Southeastern European Regional Programming Contest.

Our thanks also go to Mr. Laurentiu Oftez and Ms. Sofia Zainea from IBM Romania, and Cristian Constantinescu from FORTE computers, Aurel Stanescu from REL Computers for their continuous support to the developing of the contest in excellent conditions.

We also want to thank to the network management team and contest administrators lead by Razvan Rughinis, Radu Niculita, Octavian Purdila from the Computer Science and Engineering Department of Politehnica University.

Last, but not least, we would like to thank all the volunteers who helped run and organize the contest. Special thanks to Ana Varbanescu. Without the help of all these people and organizations, it would have been impossible to make this event happen.

Prof. Nicolae Tapus

Regional Contest Director