2005 South Central USA Regional Programming Contest Contest Home Page

Next Year

We believe we should try a fully distributed contest next year. Please send us an e-mail if you would like to host a site next year. We hope to have a site at each of the following areas next year:

Location	Host Volunteer
West Texas
South-Central Texas	Baylor (Waco)
Louisiana	LSU (Baton Rouge)
North Texas/West Oklahoma
Central Oklahoma
East Texas, North Louisiana
Central Texas

These are just ideas for sections to divide the region into. The dream would be to make it so that all schools have a 4-hour (or less) drive. We are more than willing to change these regions -- these are just a first guess.

Under this plan, the contest will be compacted into a single day (all day Saturday). Rule coverage would be first thing Saturday morning. The banquet will be eliminated. Open practice will be eliminated. (NOTE: Nothing says a site cannot do these things, they will not be expected or funded as part of the contest).

If it works out that multiple schools offer in the same area, we can rotate or re-arange areas. While it would be nice to have sites that are in the center of the area they served, it may be necessary for the site to be at an edge (remember -- the goal is to reduce commute time/cost).

Things a site would need to do:

• Volunteer
• Have a facility to host the contest (no less than 20 teams)
• Ability to provide a Linux-based environment for the contest (hard-disk based would be preferred)
• Site must have adequate room for the three contestants at each computer
• Preferable 20+ teams per site
• Ability to prevent competitor systems from accessing machines other than the PC^2 server and contest web server during contest
• Technical support to implement contest image and local PC^2 server
• Ability to photocopy problem set day before contest
• A way to feed the competitors lunch

While there are many other details to worry about, this is a start. As time becomes avaialble, we will update this page/list and provide more details. As to registration fees, we will have to see. Most sites that have made the transition from single to multi do not report a cost saving (many actually see a cost increase).

The move to distributed will have many benefits and drawbacks. The dream of making the contest available to more schools and teams, the rising costs of travel, and many other factors make this change necessary. Please help us make this transition and improve the region.