2021 Rules

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000


msoe.edu > Op > Rules

Op 2021 Computer Competition Rules

by Dr. Robert Hasker
contributions by Drs. D. Rothe, E. Durant, H. Welch, and C. Tritt
Friday 19 November 2021

Competition Instructions

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Milwaukee School of Engineering, 2026

Contents

Setting Up Your Laptop

MSOE Laptops

Click on the “Sign in” button on the welcome screen. No password is needed.
Laptops have been configured to access wireless network MSOE-Guest. Ensure you are connected to this network.

Note: Occasionally, the laptop may ask if you want to download and install various updates. Always decline these prompts.

Competition Rules

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Friday, Nov. 20 2026, Milwaukee School of Engineering

Contents

Timeline

We are currently supporting up to 60 teams. All team members must be in high school, with up to four students on a team.
Team names are limited to 30 characters. This includes spaces, so “Go Raiders” is 10 characters.
Check-in begins at 7:30am on the 1st floor of Diercks Hall on the MSOE campus, 1025 North Broadway Street in Milwaukee. Teams will be assigned a work space in either Diercks Hall or the Innovation & Technology Center (the ITC).
Teams have until 8:40am to organize. Read the rules (in this document) to avoid doing something leading to disqualification, and read through the detailed instructions to learn how to submit.
Teams are to direct questions to the MSOE student volunteers. They will be available in the competition areas. They can help teams with various technology issues related to laptops, development environments, network connections, and connecting to the OpComp server.
The competition starts at 8:45. Problem packets will be handed out at that time, and some problems may be made available through the OpComp server. See below for rules about resources teams can use during the contest.
Scores will be available in near real-time on the competition website. The scoreboard will go off line close to the end of the competition so teams can focus on solving problems.
The contest ends at 11:15am. At that time, teams return borrowed laptops with power cords, clean work spaces, collect coats and other belongings, and find seats in the NVIDIA auditorium in Diercks Hall.
At about 11:25, an MSOE faculty member or advanced student will give a short, technical talk on a current computing topic.
Contest winners are announced at approximately 11:50 am.
The event is over shortly after noon. All participants should double-check that they have all of their belongings before leaving the auditorium. Admissions staff will be available to answer questions about MSOE.

Resources

The contest is meant to be fun, not a test of who can use Generative AI the best. Solutions must be written by the teams. In particular, typing problem statements (or portions of statements) into AI systems such as ChatGPT, Gemini, CoPilot, Claude, web search engines, or IDEs is not allowed. Generated AI solutions can have markers that indicate the solution was created by an AI system. Clear violations of this rule will result in disqualification.
Programs must be written in one of the following languages.
- Java:
  - MSOE laptop IDEs: IntelliJ (recommended), BlueJ, JDK from the command line (javac)
  - Additional allowed IDEs on competitor-provided laptops: Eclipse
- C++:
  - MSOE laptop IDE: Microsoft Visual Studio Code
  - Additional allowed IDEs on competitor-provided laptops: Microsoft Visual Studio, CLion
- Python:
  - MSOE laptop IDE: Anaconda, Spyder
  - Additional allowed IDEs on competitor-provided laptops: Canopy, PyCharm Teams can use multiple programming languages.
If a team would like to use a different IDE than listed above, they must submit a request to the coordinator by Tuesday of the week of the competition.
There are several IDEs mentioned above that are marked as “competitor-provided”. It is fine to install these on the MSOE laptops. The reason we have not pre-installed them is that they are either not used frequently or require personal licenses. The laptops will be reimaged after the contest.
Problems do not require GUI knowledge, but they do require console I/O. Some problems may require reading or writing data files.
In all cases, solutions may use only the libraries that are part of standard installations. Solutions which use additional libraries will typically be judged as incorrect. This includes libraries that would have to be installed using pip tool for Python and non-standard libraries for Java and C++.
Each team is permitted to bring USB mice, USB keyboards, calculators, and language reference materials. The IDEs also provide documentation. Teams may bring their own documentation archives. Teams may not use additional computers or text entry devices. Each team is limited to two laptops regardless of whether a team brought their own or borrowed equipment from MSOE.
Teams may use the internet from their two team laptops to access items such as the Java API reference, code tutorials, problem solving websites, search engines, and articles as part of research teams may wish to conduct as they develop their solutions. However, using non-trivial source code (i.e., more than a very small number of sample lines from reference materials) directly from Internet references is forbidden. If a solution is deemed to be copied from an internet reference the team may be disqualified. Note: this applies to Generative AI systems as well such as ChatGPT, Copilot, Claude, or Gemini.
Misuse of the computers will not be tolerated. Teams may be disqualified for such actions. Protect your passwords. Teams are responsible for all use of their accounts.
Cell phone use is limited and must be consistent with other rules. This means that cell phones may not be used to access programming reference materials or as code entry devices and they may not be used for communication. However, they may used as clocks, timers, and calculators.

Competition

The problem packet will contain at least nine problems. The problems will vary in point value with the problems listed in order by value. At a minimum, there will be three low-point problems, three middle-tier problems, and three high-point problems.
Unless specifically noted in the packet, the problems can be attempted in any order. It is up to the team to decide which problems to attempt first.
The entire team may work as a group on each problem or individual team members may work on specific problems.
You can request help from floor assistants for dealing with your programming tools and environment (such as broken computers, loss of power, etc.) or to obtain get clarifications on problems. However, the floor assistants can not help you solve the contest problems.
Teachers/Coaches may have minimal contact with the student teams during the competition. In particular, they cannot discuss any of the problems with the students or answer programming questions.
Collaboration between teams is prohibited and will result in the disqualification of each team involved.
Questions regarding clarifications of specific problems should be directed to volunteers who will inform the judges. Answers will be announced on the competition web site when appropriate.
Solutions will be submitted via the OpComp server at the designated address.

Scoring

Judges run submitted solutions with various test cases. If the tests produce the expected results, the judge marks the solution as Passed. Otherwise, they mark it as Failed and provide a brief description of why it failed.
If a team has questions about a submission, contact one of the MSOE students who are there to assist with the competition. They will message the head judge for a clarification.
Solutions which pass receive the points for that problem. Each failed solution incurs a 3-point penalty, so do test carefully before submitting.
If there is a time limit on solutions (such as 10 seconds), that will be stated clearly in the problem. Judges do have the option of terminating solutions if they appear to be very inefficient or in an infinite loop. Such solutions will be marked as incorrect.
If two teams are tied, the system looks at the time of each team’s last, correct submission. The team with the earlier time will be ranked higher. Any remaining ties will be broken based on how elegant the solution appears to the judges; these decisions cannot be appealed.

Acknowledgments

These rules were developed and refined by Drs. R. Hasker. D. Rothe, E. Durant, H. Welch, and C. Tritt.

Contest Server

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

The contest server will be online closer to the contest (Friday, Nov. 20 2026). Check back here then: this page will send you straight to the server. In the meantime, the instructions explain how to create your account and submit programs.

Judging Guide

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

This page is for judges and administrators, not for contestants. It is on the public contest site, so it describes how the system works and how to grade; it holds nothing a team could use to get ahead. The rules and instructions are what teams see, and the Scoring section of the rules is the policy this page puts into practice.

Practice Session

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Created by Dr. Robert Hasker

Getting Ready for OP!

Review the rules and instructions.
Start your computer.
Select your programming environment. IntelliJ is recommended for Java, but BlueJ and command-line Java are also available (Eclipse is allowed on your own laptop); Visual Studio is available for C++; and Anaconda and PyCharm are available for Python.
Write a “HelloWorld” program in your selected environment. MSOE student volunteers will be available to help with this.
The competition problems will require user input. Write a practice program that will prompt the user to enter a piece of data (string or number) and echo the entry back to the console. In Java, you would likely use the Scanner class for this. In C++, you would likely use std::cin. The practice solution should be named something like Practice.java, practice.cpp, or practice.py (as appropriate).
Competition problems often require you to read data from a text file. If you have time, use your development environment to create a text file with your school name in it, then write a program to prompt the user for the name of a file, open the file, read every line from it, and display those lines on the screen.
In your remaining time, get comfortable, and practice on problems from earlier contests: the problems, scores and sample solutions are on the Contest Results page.

Notes:

All file locations discussed in the instructions are recommendations, not requirements. You may set up the projects and files in any fashion you choose. The contents of your laptop are not visible to the judges. Only the source files that you submit via the scoring website will be used for evaluation.
Each team will use two laptops. While the laptops have access to the network for file submission, the laptops are not networked to each other. If you need to share files among the laptops, you will need to use a flash drive (not provided).
Be sure you use just two laptops, regardless of whether you are using the MSOE laptops or your own.
Some problems will mention data files. Those data files are available on the Home tab after you log in.

Home on MSOE OpComp

2021 Rules

Op 2021 Computer Competition Rules

Competition Instructions

Milwaukee School of Engineering, 2026

Setting Up Your Laptop

MSOE Laptops

Competition Rules

Timeline

Resources

Competition

Scoring

Acknowledgments

Contest Server

Judging Guide

Practice Session

Getting Ready for OP!

Notes: