The LIVE standing can be found here: https://mcpc23.kattis.com/contests/mcpc23/standings

The information presented on this site is for the February 24, 2024 Mid-Central Regional and will be updated as details change.  Please contact the regional contest director if you have any questions.

Last page update:  February 24, 2024.

Mid-Central Regional Information

The 2023/2024 Mid-Central Regional is currently scheduled to be an in-person, on-site contest much like those before Covid. The Regional is scheduled for Saturday, February 24, 2024.

Some details are yet to be worked out, but it is likely to be much the same as the February 2023 contest.  What follows is subject to change.  There will be several regions sharing some problems on February 24, so there will be a common start time. The contest itself will start at 2:00 pm Eastern Time (1:00 PM Central). There will be some announcements before and after the contest, so teams will be expected to join a Zoom webinar at 1:00 pm Eastern (noon Central) for information about the conduct of the contest, and there will be a Zoom webinar starting 30 minutes after the contest to announce results.  Usually, 30 minutes is plenty of time for the judges to finish up what they need to do, but it could be longer.  Any delay will be announced on the Zoom webinar which will be started 30 minutes after the end of the contest.  The webinar before the contest will be important for all teams. The webinar after the contest will be to used run the resolver and show the final results.

The North America Championship is scheduled for late May 2024 in Orlando, Florida.  This year’s NAC will qualify teams for the 2024 World Finals which will are currently planned for September 2024.

Contest Day Information

The following is an outline of the schedule for the contest on Saturday, February 24, 2024.  Sites may change the first few items a little, so check with your site for details.

11:00 Central, 12:00 Eastern       Registration / Check in  (site specific, NOT meant to take the place of the ICPC registration system)

11:30 Central, 12:30 Eastern       Practice contest, intended to test the systems, not really a practice for solving contest problems

12:00 Central, 1:00 Eastern       Lunch break  (also allows time to fix any problems)

1:00 Central, 2:00 Eastern           Contest Starts

2:30 Central, 3:30 Eastern           Coaches Meeting (Zoom link TBD  –  email RCD for passcode)

6:00 Central, 7:00 Eastern           Contest Ends

6:30 Central, 7:30 Eastern           Closing Ceremony Zoom Webinar

The practice contest URL will be https://mcpc23.kattis.com/contests/mcpc23practice and the regional contest URL will be https://mcpc23.kattis.com/contests/mcpc23.  (This is logically the 2023 contest even though it will be run in 2024.)  Contestants should have Kattis logins before the contest starts.  Anyone who already had a Kattis login using the same email address as their ICPC registration can use that login.  Anyone who did not have a Kattis login should be sent an email to the address they used to register in the ICPC system.  Since each team only has one computer, it is only required that one team member login to Kattis, but is is highly desirable that all team members have Kattis logins.

ICPC Live will be running commentary during the contest:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GlOIjvx0AKs

Opening (and closing) Ceremony Zoom link:  TBD

For site information, see (will be updated soon) https://na.icpc.global/mcna/contest-site-facilities

For anyone who just wants to try out the problems without competing officially, there will be an open contest starting at 4:00 Central on Kattis:  https://open.kattis.com/contests/mcpc23open 

Problem set link:  Will be posted when allowed

Eligibility

The Mid-Central Regional will be held on February 24, 2024. Rules for student eligibility will be viewed as applying as if the contest was held in November of 2023. That is, age, number of years of study and such will be calculated as if the regional was being held at the usual time to allow any student who would have been allowed to compete in November to compete in March.  See https://icpc.global/regionals/rules for regional rules an eligibility.

Frequently Asked Questions

• When is the contest? February 24, 2024.  Zoom Webinars start at noon Central Time, 1:00 pm Eastern, and the actual contest runs from 1-6 pm Central Time (2-7 Eastern Time) on Kattis.  There will be a Zoom Webinar to announce results starting 30 minutes after the end of the contest.
• When does official registration begin? January 1, 2024.
• When does official registration close? February 10, 2024
• Can I register after registration is closed?  Maybe.  Late registrations need to be handled individually.  There is no promise that contest officials will have the time to make changes at the last minute.  Minor changes like changing who is on a team are likely to be accepted late.  Additional teams may be more difficult to handle. Please make sure to register for the contest before the deadline.
• Where do I register?  [Note that link says 2024 but it is the 2023/2024 regional]  https://icpc.global/regionals/finder/Mid-Central-USA-2024
• Must students participate in teams of three?  Teams are not eligible to advance if they do not have three team members.
• What judging system will be used? Kattis. You can create a free account and try out Kattis at open.kattis.com.
• Do I need to provide / can I provide my own judging? No, it will be done through Kattis and our centralized contest management.
• What languages will be supported? C, C++, Java, Python 3, and Kotlin. Note that Python 2 support is dropped for this year (this is due to ICPC World Finals dropping it).
• How many problems will there be? The number of problems varies from year to year, but there are usually a dozen or more problems of varying degrees of difficulty.
• What will be the difficulty level of the problems? We are aiming for a wide range, with some easier problems for novice programmers and some that should challenge the best teams.
• How will the contest run? Contestants will submit code and receive responses via the web.
• How much does this cost?   For this year, the fee is $20 per person.  This is $80 for a typical team of three students and a coach.  Notice, however that our regional charges per person and not per team.  So, if one person is the coach for three teams, the fee is $200 since there are ten people.
• What is the next level if we do well enough to qualify? This year, the next level after the Regional will be the North America Championship, scheduled for late May in Orlando, Florida, as an in-person contest.  From the Championship, the top teams will qualify for the World Finals, likely to be held in late 2024. 

Acknowledgments

• Thanks to the judges who put in tons of work preparing the contest problems.
• Thanks to the Kattis staff for supporting the contest. Particular thanks to Fredrik Niemelä and Greg Hamerly.
• And, thanks to everyone else who volunteers time to make the contest what it is today.  This includes site directors, systems administrators, coaches, and many others.