Thank you for being prepared to operate a centre for the Computer Olympiad. This document should answer the questions that you may have at this stage.

DATE AND TIME

The date for the competition is indicated on the enclosed calendar. Centres may run the contest over any unbroken two-hour period suitable to themselves on this day.

If there are unforeseen problems with this date, the contest may be held on the first suitable day after that at the discretion of the supervisor. The date and reason must be reported to the Computer Olympiad office.

Centres that wish to run two sessions because they have more contestants than can be accommodated in one session may do so, provided that:

• the second session starts immediately after the first one finishes, and
• all the proper precautions are taken to keep the questions confidential.

CONTESTANTS

The Computer Olympiad is open to full-time learners at schools in South Africa.  Although the competition is aimed at high school learners, all learners other than post-matrics may enter.

QUESTION PAPERS

Question papers were posted to the Secretary of the school.  Inside the Secretary's envelope was a sealed envelope addressed to the Principal.  This envelope should be handed to the Principal for safekeeping.  Centres must make extra copies of the questions.  Precautions must be taken to keep the questions confidential.

The set of correct answers for the judges is included in this sealed envelope.

Two sets of question papers have been provided:
START:            For beginner programmers up to and including Grade 10
OPEN:              For Grades 11 and 12 and anyone from the lower grades who has a fair chance of beating the Grades 11 and 12’s.  Only participants in the OPEN Division can progress to the Third Round.

Questions are set in English.  This is the standard communication medium used at the International Olympiad in Informatics (IOI).  However, as for the IOI, the questions may be translated into the mother tongue of the contestants by a responsible person, such as the computer teacher.  Only the English text of the questions will be binding.

Sets of instructions for the contestants and judges, as well as program score sheets and master score sheets are enclosed.  Certificates for the top three participants in each division at each centre are also enclosed.  If the centre caters for more than one school, more certificates may be requested.

PROGRAMMING LANGUAGES

Any computer programming language may be used, provided that it is commonly accepted as a programming language.  A learner must use the same programming language for all the questions he/she attempts.  In case of doubt, please contact the organisers in good time.

COMPUTER SYSTEMS

Any computer system may be used; however, each learner may use only one computer.  If a learner chooses to use a compiled language, such as Pascal, he/she may use a separate computer for compiling purposes only.  A printer must be used for printing the programs (source code) and printing out the answers.

TIME LIMIT

The time limit is exactly two hours.  Each learner should try to solve as many problems as possible from the set of five problems and save them to disk.

After the two-hour period, each learner may take up to 30 minutes to print the source code and print the answers on paper.

Any program that cannot print an answer within 5 minutes is disqualified for being too slow.

PREVIOUS PROBLEMS

A few typical problems from past years are enclosed.  The contest supervisor is free to make copies of this material for the participants.  Please note that this year’s Second Round is the equivalent of the 1986 to 2002 First Rounds.  In general the START problems will be of the level of the first problem in the previous papers. (See Past Papers for more papers)  

TASKS OF THE SUPERVISOR

Notify learners of the contest.

Set up the venue for the contest.

Supervise the contest to make sure contestants get no help from each other or outside.

Record the names of the contestants and the results achieved.  Send the results and the printouts (source codes AND answers) of the top two participants in the OPEN Division to the Computer Olympiad office.

Keep the printouts of the other certificate winners, the top female participant and the top participant from a historically disadvantaged background till 30 November.

THIRD ROUND

The national judges will select the top learners in the OPEN Division from all of South Africa and allocate some additional marks for the source code.

The names of these learners will be announced in early July and the contestants will be informed individually.

The Third Round contestants will have to solve six problems, and they will be given up to ten hours, spread over two days to do so.  Each problem will require them to write a fairly comprehensive program and will allow contestants to show design skills, programming skills, creativity and originality.  The only computer languages allowed for this round will be C, C++, Java, Pascal and Python.

INTERNATIONAL OLYMPIAD IN INFORMATICS

Four learners will be selected from the six medallists of the Third Round and will be entered for the International Olympiad in Informatics. Their journey and stay at the International Olympiad in Informatics will be sponsored.