1. Training of the Carnegie Mellon Teams Greg Kesden Eugene Fink Danny Sleator

2. Excellent talent pool - One of the best undergraduate programs in the United States Resources and constraints The challenge is to improve the performance within these resources. Limited funding - Travel to the competition - Weekly pizza Limited training time - 200 hours/year for the international team - 100 hours/year for the other students

3. Coaches Greg Kesden (since 1999): Leader and programmer Eugene Fink (since 2004): Bookkeeper and theoretician Danny Sleator (since 2008): Real theoretician

4. Percentile 05 060708 Year 0% 25% 50% 75% 100% World Finals Historic performance 04 05060708 1 4 5 6 10 2 3 Year Place Regional Competitions East Central North America Top competitors: Waterloo Purdue Toronto

5. Weekly practices: 3 hours, 20–60 students Programming competition club Weekly theory sessions: 2 hours, 4–8 students Optional homeworks 04 05060708 10 Year 20 30 40 Number of students

6. ACM-style competitions (individual and in teams) Practices Emphasis on hands-on problem solving; little theory Open to everyone; optional course credit with only good grades Free pizza

7. Analysis of hard problems and review of advanced algorithms Theory sessions Brainstorming discussions with follow-up implementation at home Open only to the best students No pizza

8. Two-semester training Basic training: Everyone Advanced training: International team Fun programming: Other students

9. Competition-skill training - Problem selection - Programming on paper - Work in teams - Low resubmission rate Fall: Basic training Identification of new talent - Questionnaires - Individual competitions Selection of two teams - Choice of the best students - Experiments with different team compositions

10. International team: Advanced training Spring: Two tracks Five-hour practices with international problems Intensive theoretical discussions Homework coding for hard problems Other students: Fun programming Three-hour practices with regional problems Less attention to optional homeworks Focus on pizza

11. Training materials