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On Saturday, October 31, 2009, hundreds of contestants in the ACM North Central North America region (NCNA) will compete for "bragging rights" as top collegiate programmers. Teams at the "top of the heap" will advance to the contest's World Finals, where they will compete in a group of 100 teams selected from international regions in a search for the best of the best!

The NCNA region includes Minnesota, Wisconsin, Western Ontario, Manitoba, Iowa, North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas, and the UP of Michigan. If you are interested in showing how good you are -- or you just want to beat an arch-rival -- then get your team together and register!

Tremendous sponsorship for the contest is again provided by IBM. Each contestant will receive a special-edition T-shirt, and individual contest sites (located through the region) will also provide site-specific prizes, snacks, and other events.

As it is difficult to require all teams to travel to a single contest site, faculty and students at a number of schools across the region volunteer to operate the contest sites. If your school would like to host a contest site, contact Stan Wileman, the regional contest director, for details.

One or more of the top teams in the region will travel to the contest world finals, usually held in late March or early April. The 2009 world finals will be held in Harbin, China, and will be a memorable event for the participants! This year's world finals were recently held in Stockholm, Sweden, Canada. Four of our region's teams participated.

World Finals

Registration

NCNA Sites

NCNA Rules

  Contest Schedule UPDATED!

Team Requirements

• Each team member must be eligible, willing, and able to compete in the World Finals, and be enrolled in a degree program with at least a half-time load.
• A team member may compete in at most two World Finals.
• A team member may compete in at most four of five consecutive regional contests beginning with the first regional contest held after beginning post-secondary studies.
• All members must be certified by the team coach.
• See the Official Rules for all regional contests at the ACM web site for detailed information on eligibility.

Registration

• Select the three students who will compete as a team. This is frequently done with a local programming contest, but the particular selection mechanism is not prescribed by the regional contest rules.
• Have a representative of the school serve as (or designate someone to serve as) the team coach.
• The team coach will certify the eligibility of the contestants, serve as the official point-of-contact with the team, and ideally accompany the team to the contest site.
• Have the team coach complete the team registration procedure on the ACM web site. The coach should also register any reserve (alternate) team members.
• Contact the director of the site at which you will compete for details on the contest environment (equipment, driving directions, parking, housing, etc.) and to verify the site can accommodate your team.
• Teams registering after October 12, 2009 will be assessed a late fee of $50. This fee is to be paid to the director of the site at which the team competes.