1. LYNBROOK COMPUTER SCIENCE CLUB MONDAY, OCTOBER 26, 2009 POWERPOINT CREATED BY: RITIK MALHOTRA PRESENTATION BY: KARTHIK VISWANATHAN Intro to USACO

2. Levels of Competition 3 divisions  Bronze, Silver, Gold Advancement through divisions based on points Qualifying round (today) determines initial division Bronze < Silver < Gold < USAICO (Camp) < IOI

3. Important Pages Homepage  http://usaco.org Registration  http://ace.delos.com/usacoregister Training  http://train.usaco.org Take the Contest  http://ace.delos.com/contestgate

4. Taking the Contest http://ace.delos.com/contestgate Enter Username and Password Select October 2009 Qualifying Round from drop- down menu

5. Coding the Solution You will be given a problem statement Solves for the general case, not the specific case given in the problem Take in input, spit out output Commented as per USACO’s rules

6. Sample in JAVA /* ID: your_username_here – you make this when you register LANG: JAVA TASK: put_the_task_name_here – they’ll give you this */ import java.io.*; import java.util.*; class test { public static void main (String [] args) throws IOException { BufferedReader f = new BufferedReader(new FileReader("test.in")); PrintWriter out = new PrintWriter(new BufferedWriter(new FileWriter("test.out"))); //they’ll give you the input and output names to use StringTokenizer st = new StringTokenizer(f.readLine()); //breaks the input line into tokens int i1 = Integer.parseInt(st.nextToken()); //for example, grab the first integer from input int i2 = Integer.parseInt(st.nextToken()); //grab a second integer from input out.println(i1+i2); //enter the data into the output file, based on what they want out.close(); //close the output file for no more entry System.exit(0); //exit the system peacefully }

7. Sample in C++ /* ID: your_username_here PROG: put_the_task_name_here LANG: C++ */ #include using namespace std; int main() { ofstream fout ("test.out"); //they’ll give you the output name ifstream fin ("test.in"); //they’ll give you the input name int a, b; fin >> a >> b; //for example, read in two integers from input fout << a+b << endl; //write the result into output file return 0; //exit peacefully }

8. Submitting Solution Submit solutions on the bottom of the ContestGate page Make sure they are formatted exactly as they want it Cite all sources used  You are allowed to use any non-human resource on the contest  Wikipedia is really useful for pseudocode purposes for any complex algorithms (especially ones requiring graph theory)

9. Additional Information This slide is up on http://LynbrookCS.com for you to use and look through before/during/after the contest Any questions, email us at presidents@lynbrookcs.com http://www.usaco.org is a great resource too Google is friend 1, Wikipedia is friend 2 Do the easy ones first  Easy = the one with least point weightage Good luck, contest ends tonight!!