About Competitive Programming and ICPC

Hi, welcome to UMich Programming Team! In this section we will be describing competitive programming and ICPC.

According to wikipedia, competitive programming is a mind sport where participants solve computer problems by writing small programs competitively, under time limits. Each problem is a write up containing problem specification, sample input, and sample output. A completed program is ran on a judge's computer and fed full input to produce output, which is then compared to the judge's output. If they match, solution is counted towards your score.

Competitive programming is an established sport that is recognized and supported by many tech companies, large, and small, including companies, such as Google, Facebook, JetBrains, and more! Tech companies sponsor programming competitions such as Code Jam, and Hackercup every year.

International Collegiate Programming Contest (ICPC) is one of the oldest competitive programming contests in the world. ICPC originated in Texas, in 1970. It went multi-tier in 1977 to world-wide in 1989. Every year over 120 teams advance from local to regional programming challenges, to end up at yearly world finals programming contest. There students compete for the title of World Champion amongst other prestigious universities from all over the world!

Back in 2011, University of Michigan Programming Team won Second Place in the 2011 World Finals ICPC Programming contest. In addition, Umich has advanced to World Finals many times in the past.

Regionals

Each year, University of Michigan participates in the East Central North America Regional Contest (ECNA). Starting from 2020, top teams from the ECNA regionals, as well as top teams from the other 10 regionals in the north America will advance to the North America Championship (NAC). At least 19 teams from NAC will advance to the World Finals.

It is a great time to join ICPC and try your hand at competitive programming!