ACM Boston Preliminary (BOSPRE) Site Managers

Although the list looks long, that is because it is an exhaustive checklist including exhaustive explanations. Half of the work involved is installing ssh terminal emulators, if you do not have them, and this can be done in half a person day. A second half person day is needed to reserve the rooms, get a few student assistants, deal with the caterer, build a single simple web page, and establish a `printer account' (see below), plus a few other odds and ends. This total of one person day, half of which is unneeded if you already have ssh terminal emulators, is all you need to before contest day. So including contest day, you should be able to host 6 to 12 teams in at most two person days (not counting student assistants during the contest).

Also note that since you will not be involved in judging, and the only action that requires professorial security is receiving and storing the problem statements, you can delegate as much as you like to trustworthy students. You can also delegate most of the before contest work to computer support staff and administrative assistants.

• Things that should be done starting a month before the contest, in case something does not go smoothly:
  • Reserve rooms and space. You need a lab capable of holding hopefully at least 6 teams. This means 18 seats and 6 PCs plus some extra PCs in case something breaks. You also need 2 PCs in a private place for contest management, and one or two public PCs to display the scoreboard publicly.
  • Telephone communications between the judge and site managers is important during the contest. Its a good idea to have a portable phone. Arrange if necessary and practical to borrow a cell phone, or to borrow a cordless phone set. Test your portable phones to be sure they work well in the areas the contestants and site managers will be in.
  • Put necessary software on each PC and test by logging into a test account provided by walton@deas.harvard.edu. The necessary PC software and how to set it up is described here.
  • Establish a printer account. This is an account to which emails containing postscript files can be sent during the contest for printing. How to do this is described here. Be sure the BOSPRE manager at Harvard knows the name of your printer account.
  • Make preliminary arrangements with your contest day assistants. You should have 2 student assistants available during the start of the contest, and 1 available during the contest. It helps to have some redundancy; e.g., a coach from another team or people who agree to work in the building during the contest who can be called upon in emergencies.
  • Be sure your school network management staff knows you will be depending on the network on the contest day, so it does not blindside you with scheduled network down time. You may want to have someone on call for network problems on contest day.
  • Find a caterer, decide what you are going to spend per lunch, make a budget, and decide on the contest fee. Fees are usually used to pay for catering, and not much else. Another possible use is janitor or computer/network support person overtime if required. The typical fee is $50, which pays for catering for 3 team members, with only a little left over. Its best to have good food that will be remembered favorably, without being extravagant. The fee has not been raised in 10 years; a fee of $75 would possibly be more appropriate these days.
  • Know how you are going to solve the parking problem, and take early action if necessary. A good solution is to have any team needing a parking permit email a particular person who will buy the permits the day before the contest and give them to you in time for contest day registration. Usually only half the teams will need permits, and typically one does not charge extra for permits.
  • Set up a web site to communicate with the teams coming to your contest site. Or have Harvard set up a web site for you on their machines. Tell Harvard the URL of your site so Harvard can link BOSPRE to it.
  • Be sure your web site has your travel directions, parking permit contact information, and fees (including to whom any check is to be made payable). Also, if appropriate, some information about what coaches can do with themselves while their teams perspire (for city schools this is not necessary as the web already suffices, though a short list of hints or URLs might be helpful).
  • Note that Harvard will maintain the mailing list bospre-admin@deas.harvard.edu which includes all site managers, the Harvard people, and any helpers the site managers want to put on the list. A second mailing list, bospre-people@deas.harvard.edu, includes these people plus all team coaches. Coaches coming to the contest will be invited to use this second mailing list to arrange a coach's lunch if they want to. But this will not be paid for by the contest management.
  • Harvard will be sending you handouts by USmail or UPS. The bulk of these handouts will be sent a week before the contest, and will consist of help files and demo problem files that are posted on the web. The problem statement handout will be sent on early in the week before the contest, probably by priority mail and possibly by registered mail; if it does not get there a pdf file can be sent and printed locally. These handouts will include everything you need but the schedule; you must make the schedule into a handout yourself. Be sure Harvard knows the USMail address to send these too.

• Things that should be done about 2 weeks before the contest:
  • Make preliminary arrangements with your caterer. You can give a preliminary estimate of the number of box lunches required. Harvard will provide an estimate of the number of teams, and you must add to this your own estimate of the number of your site managers and assistants. If you are providing box lunches for coaches, you must estimate the number of coaches, though in cities like Cambridge it is common for coaches to not hang around and to provide their own lunch arrangements. The final number will be given to the caterer the Monday before the contest.
  • Put a version of your site schedule on the web. An example schedule, the one used in BOSPRE 2000 at Harvard, is here. The schedule gives times, rooms, and team room and account assignments, plus any very important reminders (e.g., don't eat in the labs). Harvard will provide a first draft of your schedule, which you should complete and modify as you wish.

    This schedule can be updated at the last minute (usually only with last minute team registrations). You must print it and make copies to hand out.

• Things that should be done a few days before the contest:
  • Tell your caterer the final numbers (sometimes there is a question about 1 team not resolved until the day before the contest)
  • Update your schedule with final team room and account assignments and put this on the web. Last minute changes are still possible; you can notify your teams of these using the team coaches email list mentioned above.
  • Retest your PCs. You will be given a new test account specific to your site. Be sure it can submit and you can print to your site. WARNING: the password to the test account MUST NOT be given to any team, ever; the same password is used for contestant accounts during the contest.
  • Make sure your managers practice a bit with this test account so they know how to advise teams that are new to contests and are having troubles doing basic submission, etc.
  • Use the test account to test the printing account.
  • You will be given a site manager's judging account that you can use to look at what the judge can look at, though you CANNOT write information into the judging files and directories. Make sure you or a senior manager practices a bit with this site manager's account; try looking at the submissions they made in their test account.
  • The either the site manager's account or your test account can be used to send email to the judge, by using the hpcm_sendmail program just as in a contestant account. Practice this, as it is the best way to communicate many things to the judge. The email you send ends up as a query submission and can be seen using the site manager's account just like any other submission.
  • The only very easy way to print using the site manager's account is to use the printer_broadcast program that prints on ALL site printers, but does not print on any printer accessible to the judge. You may want to try this out (execute `printer_broadcast -doc' for documentation).
  • There are instructions for what to do in emergencies: e.g., if the building power fails. These are here. Print these out now, skim them, and put them in a safe and accessible place.
  • Make sure you know the phone numbers of everyone and have them written down on paper. If you are borrowing phones, check that the borrowing arrangements are still valid.

• Things that should be done just before contest day.
  • Make the final update to the schedule, print it, and make copies. You need 2 to 4 copies per team plus some for staff.
  • Be sure you have gotten the problem set. If not, get by email and print.
  • Double check that the test account works.
  • Double check that the printer account works. Try printing using the test account.
  • Borrow phones if necessary.

• Things that should be done on the contest day:
  • Call the contest judge and have him call you back to be sure phones are working. Note the judge can also communicate with site managers by using the printer_broadcast program to print on all site printers, and the site managers can communicate with the judge by using hpcm_sendmail in the site manager's account or test account to submit a query.
  • During the contest the judge can be contacted ONLY by using hpcm_sendmail or by phone. The judge monitors submissions but does NOT monitor other email.
  • During the contest the judge will contact site managers ONLY by using printer_broadcast, by phone, or by responding to email queries sent via hpcm_sendmail by the site managers. The site managers need monitor email ONLY if they are expecting a reply to an hpcm_sendmail query. Site managers must continually monitor their site printer.
  • Have your student assistants log in all the teams early on the contest day (e.g., 8:30 to 9:00am). The password to all team accounts is the same as the password to the test account above, and should NEVER be given to a team. This is your (our) guarantee that a team has at most one terminal.
  • On a public terminal, log into your test account and start the scoreboard program running so as to give a public display of the scoreboard.
  • The teams will check that their own accounts work.
  • Register the teams as they arrive. This means check them off a list, give them all the handouts EXCEPT the problems, accept the registration fee (e.g., $50), hand out parking permits if appropriate. Note: occasionally you may have to take an IOU: do so.
  • As soon as teams arrive, they may go to their terminals and practice. Student assistants who know enough can help teams that need assistance.
  • Hold a pre-contest meeting with everyone. This should be very short. You introduce the contest managers and assistants. Everyone SHOULD have printed out and read the handouts already, and everyone SHOULD have used their team practice account that was made available several weeks before the contest. But many will not have, so take a few questions politely, but do not turn this session into a tutorial for the unprepared.
  • End this meeting exactly at 10am by giving out the problems. WARNING: You cannot answer any question about the problems verbally: all answers must be put on the scoreboard where all teams can see them. You can answer non-problem-specific questions, e.g., about how the editor, compiler, and debugger work, and you can talk about the demo problems.
  • During the contest you can use your site manager's account to monitor each of your team's submissions and mistakes. You may contact the contest judge by using hpcm_sendmail in the site manager's account or your test account to propose clarifications of problems to be put on the scoreboard. You may tutor teams having trouble with the system software or with the submission procedure. WARNING: You cannot answer any question about the problems verbally: all answers must be put on the scoreboard where all teams (including those at other sites) can see them. Note that contestants who want to submit questions about problems have an email procedure using hpcm_sendmail for doing so, and such questions go to the contest judge. An exception to all this can be made for teams that have not gotten any problems correct after 3 hours of the contest, and for these teams you can relax the rules a bit, as long as you do so uniformly for all teams at your site that have yet gotten a problem.
  • During the contest you can contact the judge by using hpcm_sendmail in the site manager's account to request that a site specific announcement be put on the scoreboard. Thus you can announce the arrival of lunch, etc.
  • During the middle of the contest you may identify teams that have gotten few if any problems. Sometimes more heavy handed `problem clarification' of the easiest problems that all the likely winning teams have already gotten is a good idea. You should first figure out what to say, and then use hpcm_sendmail in the site manager's account to request that the judge put the clarification on the scoreboard.
  • Note that Harvard will only provide judging and clarifications related to questions submitted by hpcm_sendmail (usually these are subtle problem clarifications or problem statement blunders). Harvard will not have the manpower to deal with teams doing very poorly.
  • At the end of the contest, the final scoreboard will appear in your site manager's account under the name contest/scoreboard.final relative to the judging directory, and will be printed by the judge to all site printers. (The public scoreboard is not updated during the last contest hour in order to hide the winners.) Obtain a printout of this final scoreboard and make (e.g., 20) copies. Have the end of contest meeting. First announce the winners (the first N, where N is a close upper bound on the number of teams going to regionals), and then hand out the scoreboard. Give out ACM handouts (e.g., tea shirts). You can then do any of the following if you like: (1) go over the basic solution ideas of some of the harder problems; (2) show some of the more interesting submitted solutions; (3) take a survey of which problems were hardest, more interesting, etc; (4) whatever else strikes your fancy.
  • If there are no objections, we will NOT hand out individualized participation certificates, but we will produce engraved plaques for all teams that go on to regionals. These will be small but suitable for hanging on a trophy wall. They will be USMailed to winning schools some weeks after the contest.