Contest Rules
The ICPC maintains the official rules that apply by default to all regional contests. Individual regions may clarify and/or extend these rules as they see fit. Most of the clarifications and extensions for the Mid-Central USA regional contest are defined in this page and in the Notes to Teams document (which is provided to all teams on the day of the contest).
Rules for 2022 / 2023
- note that promotion in this year’s ICPC contests is from Regional to North America Championship to World Finals
Electronic Devices
Except for simple watches, teams may not have any electronic devices in their possession during the contest. This includes, but is not limited to, phones and other communication devices, calculators, calculator watches, PDAs, electronic translators or dictionaries, e-books, audio players/recorders, video players/recorders, scanners, and printers. Mere possession of such a device will result in immediate disqualification, regardless of whether or not it was used.
Late Registration
There is no guarantee for late registration. If you do not register via the ICPC web site by the posted deadline, you may be able participate if contest officials can find the time to add your team, but this gets less likely as the contest gets closer.
Machine-Readable Media
Teams may not possess any machine-readable electronic or magnetic media during the contest unless provided by the site explicitly for contest use. Violation of this rule will result in immediate disqualification, regardless of intent or whether the media were actually used.
Mathematical Knowledge
Please note that this is meant to be a guideline and an aid, not a promise or a rule. What some people consider common knowledge others may consider to be very uncommon mathematics.
Higher math may include:
- matrix operations: multiplication, addition, subtraction
- 3D vector operations: addition, scalar multiplication, dot product, cross product, triple scalar product as volume
- root finding of continuous functions by bisection
- calculus of one variable topics: finding extrema with the help of derivatives
- In other situations needed mathematical formulas will be provided, for instance for statistics.
Number of Problems
Historically, the Mid-Central problem set has had at least nine problems, but has sometimes had more than that. The exact number will be posted on the home page a few days before the contest.
Reference Materials
The Mid-Central Regional does not limit reference materials other than the above note that no machine-readable materials can be used. Site configurations may limit the space that teams have for their materials, so try not to bring a carload of reference.
The World Finals only allow teams to have 25 pages of reference material in PDF format, which is verified and printed out for the team for its use during the contest. For the Mid-Central USA contest, teams may bring any amount of printed reference material, including printouts of source code. If you have a book that includes a CD, be sure to leave the CD at home; see above.
Registration Priority
Our primary goal is to maximize the number of teams that participate in the contest; our secondary goal is to maximize the number of schools.
- Schools may register as many teams as they like before the registration deadline. The ICPC web site automatically time-stamps each registration and marks it “pending”. (2) Until the deadline, teams will be “accepted” in the order that they registered, up to a maximum of two teams per school, as long as space is available. (3) Third, fourth, and higher teams from a school will always be left “pending” until after the deadline. (4) After the deadline, if any space is available, third teams will be accepted in the order that they registered, then fourth teams will be accepted in the order that they registered, and so on.
There is no limit on the number of teams that may compete from a single institution assuming that sufficient space is available. However, a school’s teams may only compete at a single site.