Competition Rules

Regulations on the Organisation and Deployment of the Adolescent Grigore Moisil (AGM) International Computer Science Contest
– IXth Edition –

Last updated: 27.03.2023

I. Contest Overview

Art. 1. This regulation contains provisions on the organisation and conduct of the Adolescent Grigore Moisil (AGM) International Computer Science Contest (hereinafter known as the “Contest”). The Contest has two stages:

  1. An online Qualification Stage – the 22nd of April 2023
  2. An on-site Final Stage – date to be decided

The on-site Final Stage will be hosted by the International Computer High-School of Bucharest (hereinafter known as ICHB). The date and time of all rounds will be confirmed on our official website (https://agm-contest.com/). The exact date and time of the Final Stage will be published on our website no later than 45 days prior.

Art. 2. Only students enrolled in pre-University establishments (e.g. High-School, College, etc.) can participate. The participants can be from Romania or abroad. All students must be aged 14-21 years old at the start of the Qualification Stage. Underage candidates must be accompanied by an adult to ICHB to the on-site Final Stage.

Art. 3. Each team is made up of a maximum of three students. All teams must have a Team Leader who is elected by the team members. The Team Leader is responsible for:

  1. sharing the list of team members with the organisers
  2. meeting the organisers’ deadlines. Various data may need to be shared both in editable format (e.g. Excel), as scanned copies or on paper
  3. the good communication between the organisers and the team members

Art. 4. During the Qualification Stage, Romanian teams compete against Romanian teams and International teams compete against International teams:

  • Romanian Teams – all candidates are exclusively enrolled in Romania
  • International Teams – candidates may be enrolled in Romania or abroad

After the end of the Qualification Stage, there will be two ranking boards pertaining to each ‘region’. The top 20 Romanian teams and the top 6 International Teams will qualify to the on-site Final Stage.

Art. 5. All teams who do not qualify to the on-site Final Stage will be invited to participate in the online ‘mirrored’ Final Stage. Teams who participate in the ‘mirrored’ version of the Contest do not qualify for any prizes or awards.

Art. 6. Each round lasts for five hours. Should there be any technical/scientific issues during the Contest, the organisers may extend the round and any related deadlines by a reasonable amount of time.

Art. 7. Each round consists of 9 to 14 tasks with specific time and memory constraints. The tasks are decided by the organisers.

Art. 8. A live Scoreboard will show teams’ scores and their ranking for each Stage. The Scoreboard will be available at https://judge.agm-contest.com. A team’s score is based on the number of correctly solved problems ranked in descending order. In case of a tie, teams are further ranked by increasing order of penalties.

Art. 9. The Freeze Point is the time when the Scoreboard will no longer update. Regardless of the Freeze Point, all teams receive automated feedback for each submission. In practice, this means that teams should always know the verdict of their submissions shortly after these had been sent.

Art. 10. Each submission attracts one of two outcomes:

  • Accepted (i.e. a ‘correct’ verdict) – the problem will be marked as ‘solved correctly’ (subsequent attempts do not count)
  • Rejected (i.e. a ‘non-correct’ verdict)

Art. 11. Each correctly solved problem may attract penalties, which are the sum of:

  • 20 x [number of previous incorrect attempts before submitting a correct solution]
  • elapsed time (in minutes) since the beginning of the Contest until submitting the first correct solution

Penalties apply if the submission is rejected, except for cases where submissions:

  • are never correctly solved by a team
  • result in a compiler-error
  • result in a too-late error (whenever submissions are sent after the cut-off of the round)

Art. 12. Each round is hosted on the Contest Platform based on DomJudge. A manual of DomJudge may be found online at: https://www.domjudge.org/docs/team-manual.pdf. Not all platform features will be enabled during the Contest (e.g. submission via the terminal) but all critical features required for the Contest should work as expected. Contestants are encouraged to ask questions and raise any issues about the platform.

Art. 13. The supported programming languages are:

  • C
  • C++11
  • C++14
  • C++17
  • Java [8 or 11 – to be decided]
  • Pypy3
  • Python3

Please note that we can only guarantee that a solution is within the time and memory constraints for submissions in C++ or Java.

Art. 14. Candidates must only submit solutions written in English. The organisers should provide all supporting materials, important announcements and problem statements in English.

II. Qualification Stage

Art. 15. The Qualification Stage only has one round which is held online via the platform. Teams will receive an email with the login data 24 hours before the start of the Qualification Stage.

Art. 16. During the Qualification Stage IP addresses are monitored to guard against potential attempts of frauding the system. If a team has more IP addresses logged onto the platform than it has team members, they will be disqualified.

Art. 17. The Scoreboard will be frozen after four hours have elapsed. After the end of the Qualification Stage, the Scoreboard will be unfrozen. Teams will be able to see their results and rankings on the official website.

Art. 18. Shortly after the publishing of the results, all qualified teams will be receiving an invitation email to the Final Stage. The deadline to respond to the invitation email is five calendar days after receipt. Should a team fail to confirm their place within the given deadline, their place will be reallocated to the next eligible team.

Art. 19. Team members should make all the necessary arrangements to travel to the on-site location for the Final Stage. This may include getting any visas or travel documents to enter and stay in Romania for the duration of the Contest. Should any team members not be able to participate in-person at the Final Stage, they will be disqualified from the Contest. All remaining members will be able to continue as normal to the on-site Final Stage.

III. Final Stage

Art. 20. The Final Stage consists of two rounds taking place over two consecutive days.

Art. 21. The Scoreboard will be frozen on the first day after three hours have elapsed. Only after the end of the Final Stage, will the Scoreboard be unfrozen. Teams will be able to see their results and rankings on the official website.

Art. 22. During this Stage, each team must only use one computer, one keyboard and one mouse.

Art. 23. Subject to approval from the Organisation Committee, each team may use their own keyboard and mouse and bring a file comprising no more than 25 sheets of A4 paper which may come useful in solving the tasks (e.g. algorithms, theorem, code, etc.). The content of each page must be legible from a distance of at least 50 cm.

Art. 24. All materials requiring approval must be first inspected by the Organisation Committee. This can only be done at designated places on-site on the day of the Contest but no later than two hours prior to the round’s beginning.

Art. 25. On-site printing facilities will be available for teams to print out their source code.

IV. Prizes and Awards

Art. 26. Only teams qualified for the on-site Final Stage are eligible for prizes and awards.

Art. 27. The top 10 teams will receive diplomas according to their final ranking. The criteria for the awarding of Final Stage prizes and the types of prizes will be announced on the official website no later than two weeks before the start of the Final Stage.

V. Code of Conduct

Art. 28. All Contestants are expected to behave professionally. Abuse of any kind will not be tolerated. This may include, but it is not limited to, using inappropriate language, verbally or in writing, harassment, discrimination, racism and misogyny. Any contestants exhibiting abusive behaviour towards the organisers or other contestants will be permanently banned from ever participating in the Contest. Their team will also be disqualified.

Art. 29. Any attempts, successful or not, to commit fraud during the contest will result in the disqualification of the whole team. The offending team members will be permanently banned from ever participating in the Contest.

Art. 30. We regularly check for collusion to ensure the integrity and fairness of the Contest. If two teams are found to be colluding, all their members are disqualified and permanently banned from ever participating in the Contest.

Art. 31. Once the Qualification Stage has begun, no team can change for the entire duration of the Contest. Should such unapproved changes occur, all team members will be permanently banned from ever participating in the Contest.

Art. 32. All teams must notify the organisers of any changes at least 48 hours before the start of any of the Contest’s Stages. Should a team not adhere to this rule, all team members will be banned from participating in the Contest for the next two years.

VI. Final Remarks

Art. 33. The organisers may change tasks, make announcements, re-evaluate submissions and enforce any decision that protects the integrity and fairness of the Contest. All communications should be done in English.

Art. 34. There is no right of appeal in any of the competition’s rounds or in any of the organisers’ decisions.

Art. 35. The organisers reserve the right to retroactively withdraw any awards obtained by means of fraud or deception during the Contest.

Art. 36. By participating in the Contest, you are agreeing to these Regulations and our Privacy Policy, available at https://agm-contest.com/privacy-policy.

Art. 37. Should there arise a need for these regulations to change, the organisers will publish on the website any amendments no later than two weeks before the start of the Contest.