University of Utah

High School Programming Contest

1999


Questions and Answers (04/22/99)

Answers to questions we've received. Please check here before e-mailing us.

Using your University Account (04/22/99)

Information on how to use your University of Utah account to compile and test your code.

Skeleton Update Page (04/28/99)

A detailed list of the updates to the skeleton.cpp file.

Code

C/C++
Pascal
Simulator
Map Files
More Info

Description

Contact

hspc@cs.utah.edu

Updates

05/03/99 - Scoring System Adjustment
The scoring system has been simplified somewhat. Each map will be given a weight, all the weights will add up to 150 points (the points for the test cases). The top scoring bot on each map will receive the full weight, with all other bots receiving points proportional to their score on that map. Ex. Say foo.map is worth 5 points and the top score on the map is 100. A bot that scores 80 will receive 4 points.
05/03/99 - Subjective Pointers
Here's a little more information on the subjective portion.  The
subjective portion makes up 50 of the 200 points for your take home.
In order to help you all do a stellar job, here are some questions to
ask yourself.

Efficiency: Did you make intelligent data structure and algorithm
choices?  Are there no memory leaks?  Do you do completely unnecessary
work?

Documentation: Do you have appropriate comments, including a file
comment?  Are your variable and function names meaningful?  Do you
have a naming convention?  Are all unclear parts documented?  Do you
have useless comments?

Organization: Do you use functions appropriately?  Are globals used
only when necessary?  Are data structures used when appropriate?

Clarity: Do you have meaningful and consistent indentation?  Are
expressions clear?  Is it clear what every statement in your code
does?  Are you consistent in your coding style?

Writeup: Do you provide a clear picture of what you are doing?  Do you
discuss any decisions you made and issues that came up?  Are all parts
of your idea presented clearly?

English: Do you have no spelling and grammar errors?

The writeup is the file you are also to submit which describes your
solution. 
04/28/99 - Pascal Version Available!
The pascal version of the skeleton is available here.
04/28/99 - skeleton.cpp Update
Several bug were found in the skeleton.cpp file. There is a page listing the exact changes or you can just download the new skeleton.cpp. Sorry for the inconvenience.
04/28/99 - large.map Update
The large.map dimensions were incorrect. It should be a 20x33 map. The new version is available (and actually was yesterday as well).
04/28/99 - Useful Unix Command
Here is a nice command for unix systems that will run and simulate your 
solution, and log both the output of your solution and the output of the 
simulator to log files:

solution < mapfile | tee solution.log | simulate mapfile | tee simulate.log

Where solution is the executable of your solution, and mapfile is the 
map you wish to run it on.  solution.log will contain the output of your 
program, and simulate.log will contain the output of the simulation.  

For example, to test on plain.map:

solution < plain.map | tee solution.log | simulate plain.map |
tee  simulate.log
04/22/99 - none so far
The first update will hopefully be a Pascal version of the skeleton program.

hspc@cs.utah.edu
Last modified: 04/22/99 5:15 pm