Contest Details & Rules

For the 2018-19 season, we have scheduled four online rounds for individual participates along with an in-person final round comprised of qualifying teams (based on individual and school performance in the online rounds). To participate in the online rounds, simply click the "Register Now" button at the top-right of this site and follow the instructions there. The dates and times for each round are as follows:

Online Round 1: Friday, November 16th, 2018 from 3:30 pm to 6:30 pm ET
Online Round 2: Friday, December 14th, 2018 from 3:30 pm to 6:30 pm ET
Online Round 3: Friday, February 1st, 2019 from 3:30 pm to 6:30 pm ET
Online Round 4: Friday, March 22nd, 2019 from 3:30 pm to 6:30 pm ET
In-Person Final Round (By Invitation Only): May, 2019 (date to be determined)

While everyone is free to enter and participate in the online rounds, you must currently be a student in a Canadian primary or secondary school to be eligible for prizes. To participate in the in-person final round, your school's team(s) must obtain permission from your teacher supervisor and/or principal. Further details will be posted here later in the year.

General Rules and Format

The contest will primarily consist of computer science problems that are algorithmic in nature. The style of the problems is very similar to that of the Canadian Computing Competition. For each problem, the competitor or team must write a program that reads data from standard input, process the data according to the problem statement, and print the answer to standard output. The program will be automatically run against test cases and given a score based on the correctness of the output.
Contestants must work individually in the online rounds. The finals will allow teams of 1 to 3 people.
Problem statements will be made available on the WCIPEG website (http://wcipeg.com) at the beginning of each contest. Solutions must be submitted using the PEG Judge on the WCIPEG website and may be submitted at any time during the contest period. See the registration page for more instructions on using the online contest system.
Contestants and teams may submit solutions using any of the following programming languages: C, C++, Java 7, Python (2 and 3), Pascal, Ruby, Haskell, PHP, and Perl.
Time and memory limits for the execution of the program will be displayed on each problem statement page.
While the contest is running, do not discuss solutions with others. Any form of cheating will result in permanent disqualification from all future contests.

Format of online rounds

Each contest will last for 3 hours, and will have 4 problems of approximately increasing difficulty.
Contestants must compete individually for the online rounds, and must use the same PEG judge account they registered with. In other words, they may not collaborate with anyone during the contest period. Contestants may use any computer they wish (i.e. they may work from school or home), and do not have to be supervised by a teacher.
Do not submit programs you wrote in the past in collaboration with other people. Digital resources are allowed, but you should definitely not search for or submit exact solutions you've found on the web. If you must use snippets of code you've found online, insert a comment to note its source. We ultimately encourage you to do work as independently as possible.
Contestants may submit proposed solutions to each problem as many times as they wish. Each submission may receive partial points (specific scoring rules will depend on each problem), and only the highest-scoring submission will be counted. Time of submission is ignored, except when ties must be broken.
If multiple contestants receive the same total score, ties will be broken based on the earliest submission time that the total score was obtained.
The bottom of the registration page provides a step-by-step guide on how to enter, participate in, and submit problems to an online contest using the PEG judge. Please familiarize yourself with this before participating in your first online round.

Format of IN-PERSON Final ROUND

Based on the performances of contestants in the online rounds, we will invite a select number of students and/or schools to attend the finals. Therefore it is important for you to participate in every online round! If you or your school qualifies, further details will be sent to your teacher by early May.
Problems will be very similar in style to the online rounds. Given the increased difficulty and number of problems, students from the same school are encouraged to work in teams in the finals. Each team must have between 2-3 students, unless a school is sending only 1 student, in which case that student may be on his/her own team.
The contest will last for 3 hours, and will have 5 problems of approximately increasing difficulty.
Each team will be limited to one computer for writing code and submitting solutions.
Printed references (books, handouts, etc.) are allowed. No digital aids (including discussion forums on the internet and previously written code) are permitted, except for language documentation (e.g. http://www.cplusplus.com/reference/ but not the forums).
Each team may submit proposed solutions to each problem as many times as it wishes. Each submission may receive partial points (specific scoring rules will depend on each problem), and only the highest-scoring submission will be counted. Time of submission is ignored, except when ties must be broken.
If multiple teams receive the same total score, ties will be broken based on the earliest submission time that the total score was obtained.

Contest Divisions

For this year, we will have 3 divisions (Junior, Intermediate, and Senior) in both the online rounds and the finals round.
Junior Division: This division is for students new to computer programming, and will be roughly easier than the junior division of the Canadian Computing Competition. Junior competitors should have started taking computer science courses and should be familiar with if-statements, loops, strings, simple logic, and math.
Intermediate Division: This division is for students with a moderate amount of experience (roughly 1-2 years), and will be a bit more difficult than the Canadian Computing Competition's junior division.
Senior Division: This division is for experienced students who wish to be challenged, and will be around as difficult as the Canadian Computing Competition's senior division. Senior competitors should be familiar with some more advanced algorithms and data structures, such as graph theory and dynamic programming.
Contestants may compete in any division in any of the contests. However, we encourage you to choose a division that will challenge you.
You may submit to any number of divisions during the online contests. Only your rank in the highest division you submit to will be considered for prizes. In other words, if you submit to both intermediate and senior for an online round, only your senior division rank will be looked at.

Prizes

Prizes will be awarded to best performing students in the intermediate and senior divisions. The tentative prize pools for each online round are as follows:
- Top 8 Senior division winners: $100, $50, $25, $25, $25, $25, $25, $25
- Top 4 Intermediate division winners: $50, $25, $25, 25
For the finals round, there will be over $1000 in prizes to be distributed! The distribution of prizes will be announced at the beginning of the finals.
Update: As of the 2018 season, we are no longer distributing prizes immediately after each online round. Instead, the entire year's worth of prizes will be distributed at the end of the school year, during our in-person finals. Prizewinners unable to attend the finals in person will have their prizes mailed to them.
Note: we reserve the right to adjust the prizes at any time.

Preparation

Visit http://wcipeg.com and practice using our vast archive of contest programming problems.
Practice on past problems from the Canadian Computing Competition.
Practice on past problems from the Woburn Challenge.

FINE PRINT

You agree that by participating in the Woburn Challenge online rounds, you will abide by all rules of the Woburn Challenge listed on this page, as well as all rules of the PEG Judge. You agree that all rulings on prizes by the contest coordinators are final. You understand that failure to comply with any of these terms may result in permanent disqualification from all future contests. We, the coordinators, reserve the right to modify the rules, terms, and conditions of the Woburn Challenge at any time, and without notice. By participating, you agree to release us from any and all claims, damages or liabilities arising from or relating to your participation.