Hello, Codeforces!

We are thrilled to announce the dates of our annual online programming competition, the SIT & JUB STAR Contest 2022, organized by the Schaffhausen Institute of Technology (SIT) in Switzerland and our partner Jacobs University Bremen (JUB) in Germany.

Winners will have the chance to receive exciting prizes, including a full scholarship for Master in Computer Science and Software Engineering program.

What is the SIT & JUB STAR Contest?

The goal of the SIT & JUB STAR Contest is to promote interest in the field of Computer Science and Software Engineering, giving participants an opportunity to demonstrate their knowledge of programming. It is also a winning ticket for full scholarship to a master program. To participate, click here.

The SIT & JUB STAR Contest 2022 timetable

April 16 15:00 (UTC), 2022 | Practice Round: An opportunity to familiarize yourself with the testing environment. You can practice any time from April 16 to 5 minutes before the Final Round. This is an optional step but we highly recommend taking part in it. The results of this round will not affect your final score.

April 26 08:00 (UTC), 2022 | SIT & JUB STAR Contest: The contest starts at 8 am, UTC, on April 26. You have 4 hours to complete all requested tasks, which include 8 to 12 problems of various levels of difficulty in algorithmic programming.

DATES | Interview Round and Winner Announcements: Participants with the highest scores will be invited for the interview round with professors from SIT and Jacobs University Bremen. Winners will be notified by email.

Prizes

Several prizes are offered to the top candidates:

• Full scholarships for the Master in Computer Science and Software Engineer program offered in Switzerland and Germany
• Other scholarship options available
• Some exciting gifts from Switzerland and Germany!

Who can participate?

Everyone is welcome! The contest is open for all ages and skill levels, all you need is a passion for coding.

To be eligible to win the full scholarship, please consult the following guidelines.

How can I participate?

• Fill out the contest registration form here.
• Register at Codeforces using a special link you will receive in the confirmation email. Please fill in the same email address you used in the registration form.
• If you have any further queries, please reach out to [email protected]

About the Master in Computer Science and Software Engineering

Our 2-year hybrid Master in Computer Science and Software Engineer brings the latest must-knows in science, tech and business, through lively lectures by renowned field leaders and hands-on lab activities. With this program, go from studying in Schaffhausen in Switzerland, known for its excellence in IT science and technology, to Bremen in Germany, a vibrant campus for English-speaking students, with a rich academic tradition. Click here to learn more.

About SIT and Jacobs University Bremen

SIT is a global institution dedicated to promoting Science, Education and Technology. Headquartered in Schaffhausen, Switzerland, SIT is a growing ecosystem comprised of a non-profit component, with education and research, as well as commercial technology spin-offs, consulting services, a start-up incubator and investment funds.

Thanks to its two English-language campuses – in Bremen, Germany and in Schaffhausen, Switzerland – SIT offers interdisciplinary university programs to students from around the globe with flexible learning models. With a research-centric approach and an entrepreneurial mentality at its core, the SIT education ecosystem is a gateway to the next generation of digital leaders.

We look forward to seeing you show off your programming skills on competition day.

Good luck!

The Southwestern Europe Regional Contest will take place on the 23rd of April. It is the ICPC regional contest (i.e., the winning teams will advance to the ICPC World Finals) for teams from France, Israel, Italy, Portugal, Spain, and Switzerland.

The mirror contest SWERC 2021-2022 - Online Mirror (Unrated, ICPC Rules, Teams Preferred) will be held on Codeforces at 24.04.2022 14:05 (Московское время) and will last 5 hours.

The mirror contest will contain all the problems from the official competition plus some additional problems.

I am the chief judge for the competition and I want to thank:

• The amazing set of judges who proposed and prepared the problems: cescmentation_folch, cip999, Delfad0r, gangsterveggies, Giove, gog.gerard, majk, Petr, Simon, tap_tapii.
• The MIT team composed of Rewinding, TLE, antontrygubO_o for testing the round and Philae for proofreading the statements.
• Everyone involved in the organization of SWERC, in particular Dariost (director), edomora97 (technical director), Gianpaolo Agosta (director) and wil93 (secretary).
• MikeMirzayanov for Polygon (that we used to prepare the problems) and for letting us host the mirror on Codeforces.

I invite you to participate in the contest and I hope that you will like the problems.

On the difficulty
The contest features problems with difficulties from div2A to div1F; so anyone can find something at their level.

Many teams without much experience participate in SWERC, so the problem set should be enjoyable also for div2 contestants. On the other hand, solving all the problems should be challenging even for the strongest teams in the world: the MIT team did not AK in 5 hours.

How did you manage to get such good quality of the problems...
Who are the setters?
One of the best problem sets I have seen if not best

Rules

1. The contest is unrated, so your codeforces rating will not be affected.
2. The scoring is ICPC-style: teams are first sorted by number of problems solved, then the time-penalty is used as a tie-break. An incorrect submission gives a 20 minutes penalty.
3. We encourage participation as a team.
4. If you are participating in a team, we encourage you to use only one computer for coding the solutions (as in an ICPC contest). Regarding using templates and copy-pasting code: feel free to do it.

UPDATE: We hope you liked the problems, here is the editorial for all the problems in the mirror: https://codeforces.net/blog/entry/102042 .

UPDATE: Congratulatins to the all the participants of the onsite contest and in particular to the two gold medal winning teams, both solving 10 problems (and with a very similar penalty time):

1. Raw Pots -- Harbour.Space University
2. TAU++ -- Tel Aviv University

And congratulations also to the four teams who managed to solve all the problems in the mirror:

1. tourist, ksun48
2. jiangly
3. Merkurev, KAN, Um_nik
4. djq_cpp, hehezhou, jqdai0815

On Apr/23/2022 17:05 (Moscow time), we will host Codeforces Global Round 20.

Note the unusual timing, it is 30 minutes earlier.

This is the second round of the 2022 series of Codeforces Global Rounds. The rounds are open and rated for everybody.

The prizes for this round:

• 30 best participants get a t-shirt.
• 20 t-shirts are randomly distributed among those with ranks between 31 and 500, inclusive.

The prizes for the 6-round series in 2022:

• In each round top-100 participants get points according to the table.
• The final result for each participant is equal to the sum of points he gets in the four rounds he placed the highest.
• The best 20 participants over all series get sweatshirts and place certificates.

Thanks to XTX, which in 2022 supported the global rounds initiaitive!

All problems were written and prepared by errorgorn, maomao90 and oolimry.

We would like to thank the following people who made this round possible:

• antontrygubO_o for coordinating our round and somehow only rejecting 2 div2As.
• oolimry for contributing to national defence and keeping Singapore safe.
• dario2994 for being the best tester. The perfect tester does not exist but I think dario2994 comes really close to it.
• tqbfjotld, gamegame,dorijanlendvaj, dario2994, kclee2172, Monogon, nvmdava, TheScrasse, jamessngg, pavement, iLoveIOI, AlperenT, icypiggy, timreizin, Myrcella, DeMen100ns, QuangBuiCPP, bWayne, chicken337, joelau for testing the round and providing useful feedback.
• MikeMirzayanov for Codeforces and Polygon.

You will have 3 hours to solve 9 problems, one of which is divided into two subtasks.

The scoring distribution is 250-500-750-1000-1500-(1250+1250)-2750-3000-4000. GLHF!

Also, please upvote the blog so that I can get more contribution than antontrygubO_o.

PS: We would like to take this opportunity to congratulate rotavirus or antontrygubX_y on getting married. Wishing you lots of love and happiness.

Edit: Editorial is released. Even if you have solved a problem, we encourage you to read the editorial as you might learn something new from it.

Hello Codeforces!

On 22.04.2022 17:35 (Московское время) Educational Codeforces Round 127 (Rated for Div. 2) will start.

Series of Educational Rounds continue being held as Harbour.Space University initiative! You can read the details about the cooperation between Harbour.Space University and Codeforces in the blog post.

This round will be rated for the participants with rating lower than 2100. It will be held on extended ICPC rules. The penalty for each incorrect submission until the submission with a full solution is 10 minutes. After the end of the contest you will have 12 hours to hack any solution you want. You will have access to copy any solution and test it locally.

You will be given 6 or 7 problems and 2 hours to solve them.

The problems were invented and prepared by Adilbek adedalic Dalabaev, Vladimir vovuh Petrov, Ivan BledDest Androsov, Maksim Neon Mescheryakov and me. Also huge thanks to Mike MikeMirzayanov Mirzayanov for great systems Polygon and Codeforces.

Good luck to all the participants!

UPD: Editorial is out

Hello Codeforces!

SlavicG, flamestorm, MikeMirzayanov, Errichto, and I want to invite you to the long-awaited second Div. 4 round!

It starts on Apr/21/2022 17:35 (Moscow time).

The format of the event will be identical to Div. 3 rounds:

• 5-8 tasks;
• ICPC rules with a penalty of 10 minutes for an incorrect submission;
• 12-hour phase of open hacks after the end of the round (hacks do not give additional points)
• after the end of the open hacking phase, all solutions will be tested on the updated set of tests, and the ratings recalculated
• by default, only "trusted" participants are shown in the results table (but the rating will be recalculated for all with initial ratings less than 1400 or you are an unrated participant/newcomer).

We urge participants whose rating is 1400+ not to register new accounts for the purpose of narcissism but to take part unofficially. Please do not spoil the contest for the official participants.

Only trusted participants of the fourth division will be included in the official standings table. This is a forced measure for combating unsporting behavior. To qualify as a trusted participant of the fourth division, you must:

• take part in at least five rated rounds (and solve at least one problem in each of them),
• do not have a point of 1400 or higher in the rating.

Regardless of whether you are a trusted participant of the fourth division or not, if your rating is less than 1400 (or you are a newcomer/unrated), then the round will be rated for you.

Many thanks to the testers: senjougaharin, magnus.hegdahl, Vladosiya, MeGustaElArroz23, Sho, bakekaga, geranazavr555, doreshnikov, jampm, Neophiliatic, qwexd and VIP-tester _Vanilla_.

We suggest reading all of the problems and hope you will find them interesting!

Good Luck!

Update: Editorial

Hello Codeforces!

I am happy to invite you to Codeforces Round 783 (Div. 2), and Codeforces Round 783 (Div. 1) which will be held on, Apr/19/2022 17:35 (Moscow time)! This round is rated for both divisions.

I would like to thank the following people who made the round possible:

• Aleks5d for coordinating the round!
• KAN for reviewing the problems.
• 4qqqq, YashDwivedi, k_balint, Riladavin, Peti, Akulyat, kclee2172, errorgorn, dorijanlendvaj, KAN, gamegame for testing the round and giving valuable feedback.
• MikeMirzayanov for great Codeforces and Polygon platforms.
• NEAR for supporting the Codeforces community! Details can be found in this post.
• You for participating!

In each division there will be 6 problems and 2 hours to solve them.

Score distribution:

Div. 2: 500 — 500 — 750 — 1500 — 2000 — 2500.

Div. 1: 250— 1000 — 1500 — 2000 — 2750 — 3500.

Good luck!

UPD: Editorial

UPD2: Congratulations to the contest winners:

Div. 2:

1. HenHenHenAAAAAAAAAAAAA

2. QiangBro_ShuDe

3. MarioPariona117

4. Moomer

5. SpadeA261

Div. 1:

1. djq_cpp

2. tourist

3. maroonrk

4. Um_nik

5. Rewinding

Hello, Codeforces!

TimeWarp101 and I are excited to invite you to Codeforces Round 782 (Div. 2) which will take place on Apr/17/2022 17:35 (Moscow time). This round will be rated for participants with rating lower than 2100.

Many thanks to all the people who made this round possible:

• Arpa and KAN for coordinating the round!
• KAN for Russian translations.
• AwakeAnay for a lot of advice throughout the process + listening to my terrible problem ideas, and for proposing tasks that did not make it to the final problemset.
• TimeWarp101 cause I love you uwu <3
• i_am_completely_useless for being completely useless.
• antontrygubO_o, AmShZ, AwakeAnay, generic_placeholder_name, TeaTime, fishy15, TheScrasse, kartikeyasri23, MagentaCobra, _Vanilla_, Etherite and Codula for testing and providing detailed feedback that improved the quality and balance of the round significantly.
• Our lord and saviour MikeMirzayanov for great systems Codeforces and Polygon.
• NEAR for supporting the Codeforces community! Details can be found in this post.

You will have 2 hours to solve 6 problems.

Scoring distribution: $$$500-750-1500-2000-2250-3000$$$

We've tried to keep the statements short and pretests strong. We hope you will enjoy the round!

See you all in the standings!

P.S. namanbansal013 will be livestreaming his solution explanations for some of the problems here. Do check out his channel too!

UPD: We are really sorry for the issues with the queue, but we hope you liked the problems anyway.

UPD: Editorial

UPD: Congratulations to the winners!

Official winners:

1. Fire_big
2. 20333333333
3. _DAC_
4. SILA_edr
5. Nutella3001

Unofficial winners:

1. Geothermal
2. disorientation
3. Koosha_Mv
4. tute7627
5. oleh1421

First solves:

1. A: SSRS_ at 00:01
2. B: SSRS_ at 00:03
3. C: PurpleCrayon at 00:07
4. D: noimi at 00:17
5. E: CoderAnshu at 00:21
6. F: rainboy at 01:06

Hello.

In the meantime, the onsite event has already begun. You can follow the results at the link https://nerc.itmo.ru/archive/2021/standings.html (refrain from viewing if you want to plan to write a mirror and want the conditions as close as possible to the participants in the competition).

There is great news. This year it was possible to get together without any online participation. Teams write from one computer! Good old ICPC.

And I suggest you join the online mirror. It is designed for team participation by those who have passed the qualifying competitions. Ready to try? Use the link: 2021-2022 ICPC, NERC, Northern Eurasia Onsite (Unrated, Online Mirror, ICPC Rules, Teams Preferred).

Good luck!

Hello Codeforces!

On Apr/09/2022 17:35 (Moscow time) Educational Codeforces Round 126 (Rated for Div. 2) will start.

Series of Educational Rounds continue being held as Harbour.Space University initiative! You can read the details about the cooperation between Harbour.Space University and Codeforces in the blog post.

This round will be rated for the participants with rating lower than 2100. It will be held on extended ICPC rules. The penalty for each incorrect submission until the submission with a full solution is 10 minutes. After the end of the contest you will have 12 hours to hack any solution you want. You will have access to copy any solution and test it locally.

You will be given 6 or 7 problems and 2 hours to solve them.

The problems were invented and prepared by Adilbek adedalic Dalabaev, Vladimir vovuh Petrov, Ivan BledDest Androsov, Maksim Neon Mescheryakov and me. Also huge thanks to Mike MikeMirzayanov Mirzayanov for great systems Polygon and Codeforces.

Good luck to all the participants!

UPD: Editorial is out

Dear Codeforces Community,

Kirill22 and I are glad to invite you to Codeforces Round 781 (Div. 2), which will take place on Apr/08/2022 17:35 (Moscow time). This round will be rated for the participants with rating lower than 2100

These are some great people that we would like to thank:

• Artyom123 for round coordination (and KAN too!) and being in touch all the time for providing help
• Igorbunov, generic_placeholder_name, nskybytskyi, AlperenT, FairyWinx, TheScrasse, Ziware, vsinitsynav, wery0, Kotehok3, YanikusGG, Absyarka, FelixDzerzhinsky, Codula for testing and providing tons of feedback and making completely different submissions
• MikeMirzayanov for Codeforces and Polygon
• NEAR for supporting the Codeforces Community! You can find the details in this post.

You will have 2 hours to solve 5 problems.

One of these problems is interactive, please see the guide of interactive problems if you are not familiar with it.

The scoring distribution: 500 — 750 — 1250 — 1500 — 2250

P.S. I have been waiting for a long time to hold another contest and now this time has come. I really hope that you will like the problems, good luck!

UPD: Editorial