CSI 4v96: Competitive Learning, Fall 2012

Overview

This course is a topics course in problem solving and algorithms. It is modeled on the collaborative and competitive environments at the ACM International Collegiate Programming Contest. Each week we will discuss a topic, and the assignments will be programming-based problems related to that topic.

Practical information

Lectures are from 2:30 to 3:20 PM in Rogers 113 on Wednesdays.

My office is in the Rogers Engineering and Computer Science building, and office hours are listed on my home page. I am glad to talk to students during and outside of office hours. If you can't come to my office hour, please make an appointment for another time, or just stop by.

Schedule

Here is a schedule of the material we will cover. As the semester progresses, the relevant problems will be listed under each topic.

Week 1 (Wednesday, Aug 22): Introduction to Problem Solving
Week 2 (Wednesday, Aug 29): Elementary Data Structures -- The C++ Standard Template Library or Java Collections, including sequence containers, iterators and basic template algorithms (problems marked with * are on more advanced topics)
Week 3 (Wednesday, Sep 5): Sorted associative set and map data structures and their implementations in C++ STL or Java Collections (problems marked with * are on more advanced topics)
Week 4 (Wednesday, Sep 12): Input and output
Week 5 (Wednesday, Sep 19): Introduction to graphs — representation, elementary algorithms (DFS, BFS, loop detection, topological sort)
Week 6 (Saturday, Sep 29): Qualifying Contest — we will meet on Saturday 2-7 PM
Week 7 (Wednesday, Oct 3): Intermediate graph algorithms, spanning trees, shortest paths
Week 8 (Wednesday, Oct 10): Introduction to computational geometry: basic representation, vector operations, proximity tests
Week 9 (Wednesday, Oct 17): Intermediate computational geometry: angle problems, convex polygons, intersection problems — We will meet in room 210
Week 10 (Wednesday, Oct 24): This week is the regional programming contest, which serves as the week's problems. Also, problem writeups are due.
Week 11 (Wednesday, Oct 31): Advanced computational geometry: convex hull, closest pair of points
Week 12 (Wednesday, Nov 7): Introduction to dynamic programming, elementary algorithms, memoization
Week 13 (Wednesday, Nov 14): Dynamic programming: additional algorithms, theory and algorithm development
Week 14 (Wednesday, Nov 28): Final Local Contest -- We will meet in room 210

Textbooks & resources

There is no required text for this course. However, the following books may be useful:

Programming Challenges by Steven Skiena
The Algorithm Design Manual by Steven Skiena
Introduction to Algorithms by Cormen et al.
Programming Pearls by Jon Bentley
Any other data structures, algorithms, and language reference books.

Further online resources:

Bruce Eckel, Thinking in C++ (2nd edition)
the Standard Template Library (STL) reference
Project submission guidelines and coding style guidelines for this course.

Course handouts

STL cheatsheet 1: vectors, pairs, iterators, algorithms
STL cheatsheet 2: sets, maps, stringstreams

Project submissions

To submit your projects, use the upload site. Log in with your normal BearID and password. There you should find two options: submission for a Java project, or submission for a C++ project. For Java, your main class should be public and should be called Driver.

We will use the same upload assignment to submit and test all the projects. So that the upload site can tell which project you're submitting, you should include in your source a comment with the following text:

ASSIGNMENT N

where N is the three-digit assignment number (e.g. 070 or 289). If you don't set this correctly, your code will not be evaluated correctly. When you click test, the upload site will compile and evaluate your code, and email you the response.

Grading

Grades will be assigned based on the following breakdown:

First semester students:
- # of problems completed: 100%
Second and third semester students:
- # of problems completed: 80%
- problem(s) developed: 20%

Final letter grades will be assigned at the discretion of the instructor, but here is a minimum guideline for letter grades:
A: 90-100, B+: 88-89, B: 80-87, C+: 78-79, C: 70-77, D: 60-69, F: 0-59

Solving problems

Each problem completed within 1 week of it being assigned earns 2 points. Each problem not completed within a week but completed by the end of the semester earns 1 point. Completing a program means passing the tests on the upload site.

For weeks designated as "contests", the problems will not be publicly posted to the web. You should choose a 3 hour window during which you plan to work on the problems. Send your professor an email about 24 hours in advance of this time, and he will send you the problems via email. Then work on the problems during your chosen time frame.

Writing problems

Students taking the course for the second (third) semester must develop one (two) problems of their own. This includes:

A Latex writeup.
A correct, efficient, well-structured, well-commented, one-file solution in C++ or Java
One input file containing all test cases (must be less than 500 kb)
One output file containing the correct output for the given input file (must be less than 500 kb)
A test case generator which generates input file (may be written in C++, Java, Perl, or Python). This should probably have some hand-made test cases hard coded in, as well as some randomly created test cases.

Here is a problem skeleton you should follow closely that contains all these files. What you hand in should be very similar in format to these files.

These problems are due at the last class meeting of the semester. You must also submit via email to the professor your ideas for your problem(s) the 3rd class meeting, and a draft of the completed writeup on the 10th meeting.

Policies

This website contains the official course information. Please check it regularly for updates.
All work in this course is strictly individual, unless the instructor explicitly states otherwise. While discussion of course material is encouraged, collaboration on assignments is not allowed. Collaboration includes (but is not limited to) discussing with anyone (other than the professor) anything that is specific to completing an assignment. You are encouraged to discuss the course material with the professor, preferably in office hours, and also by email.
Bring any grading correction requests to your professor's attention within 2 weeks of receiving the grade or before the end of the semester, whichever comes first.

Academic honesty

I take academic honesty very seriously. Many studies, including one by Sheilah Maramark and Mindi Barth Maline have suggested that "some students cheat because of ignorance, uncertainty, or confusion regarding what behaviors constitute dishonesty" (Maramark and Maline, Issues in Education: Academic Dishonesty Among College Students, U.S. Department of Education, Office of Research, August 1993, page 5). In an effort to reduce misunderstandings, here is a minimal list of activities that will be considered cheating in this class:

Using a source other than the optional course textbooks, the course website, or your professor to obtain credit for any assignment.
Copying another student's work. Simply looking over someone else's source code is copying.
Providing your work for another student to copy.
Collaboration on any assignment, unless the work is explicitly given as collaborative work. Any discussion of an assignment or project is considered collaboration.
Plagiarism.
Studying tests or using assignments from previous semesters.
Providing someone with tests or assignments from previous semesters.
Turning in someone else's work as your own work.
Giving test questions to students in another class.
Reviewing previous copies of the instructor's tests without permission from the instructor.

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