mhb@src.dec.com (Marc H. Brown) (06/03/91)
During Memorial Day Weekend, 330 students from 66 schools across the country and Canada met at Cypress Creek HS in Houston, TX for the 12th Annual Computer Science All-Star Contest sponsored by the American Computer Science League (ACSL). The schools were invited to participate based on their outstanding performance on ACSL's 4 regular season contests held at each school. About 400 schools participated in each contest this year. The All-Star Contest was composed of 2 parts: programming problems in the morning, and computer science written tests in the afternoon. The programming problems were solved as a team. Each team of 5 students was given 3 computers with which to solve 5 problems. There was a 3 hour time limit. The written tests were solved by individual efforts. Each of the 4 rounds comprised 3 problems from designated topics; students had 15 minutes to complete each round. One dozen Macinstosh SEs donated by Apple were awarded to the top schools in each of the three divisions. Books, donated by Addison-Wesley, Digital Press, Prentice-Hall, MIT Press, and John Wiley were awarded to top students in each division. The top schools in each division are listed below. An asterisk indicates the school was awarded a computer. Senior Division (120 points max) ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 107 * Montomery-Blair, MD 107 * Coral Gables, FL 98 * Barrington, RI 98 * N Miami Beach, FL 95 * Arlington, MA 93 * Evanston Township, IL 91 Illinois Math/Science, IL 90 AE Stevenson, IL 90 Beavercreek, OH 90 Langham Creek, TX 88 Jefferson Science/Tech, VA 88 W Torrance, CA 84 Emmaus, PA 83 Paul VI, VA 83 Libertyville, IL 81 Milford, NH 80 Enloe, NC Intermediate Division (120 points max) ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 97 * Los Alamos, NM 88 * Alamo Hts, TX 78 * Freehold, NJ 76 * Cy-Fair, TX 74 Miami Sunset, FL 69 Cypress Creek, TX 68 Langham Creek, TX 66 Dunwoody, GA 62 E York, ON 55 Herbert Lehman, NY 55 N Toronto, ON 52 Conrad Weiser, PA 52 Auburn, MA 51 Enloe, NC 50 Miami Killian, FL Junior Division (60 points max) ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 54 * Takoma Park, MD 52 * Jefferson Science/Tech, VA 50 Enloe, NC 48 Langham Creek, TX 40 Freehold, It wouldn't be fair to networks around the world to reprint the contest in its entirety here. You can obtain a copy by writing to ACSL, Box 40118, Providence, RI 02940. Here is one of the programming problems ("Farey Fractions") and a few of the written problems: ------------------------------------------------------------------- Problem: The Farey sequence of order N is the ordered set consisting of the fraction 0/1, followed by all irreducible proper fractions with denominators from 2 to N, arranged in order of increasing magnitude, followed by 1/1. Here are the first few Farey sequences: F1 = 0/1 1/1 F2 = 0/1 1/2 1/1 F3 = 0/1 1/3 1/2 2/3 1/1 F4 = 0/1 1/4 1/3 1/2 2/3 3/4 1/1 We use the notation FN;k to refer to the kth element of FN. For example, F4;2=1/4and F3;4=2/3. Input: Ten sets of data. Each set consists of a command string followed two integers, a and b. The command string is either "VALUE" or "LOCATE." We shall restrict ourselves to Farey sequences of order 50 or less, and the first 5 inputs will involve Farey sequences of order 10 or less. Output: For VALUE commands, print the value of Fa;b as the the numerator followed by the denominator. Both the numerator and the denominator must be correct to receive credit. For LOCATE commands, find the smallest Farey sequence containing an element whose value is a/b. (We guarantee that there is such an element.) Print the order of that Farey sequence and the position of the element in the sequence. Both the order of that Farey sequence and the position must be correct to receive credit. Sample Input => Output LOCATE, 2, 5 => 5, 5 (F5;5) LOCATE, 45, 49 => 49, 695 (F49;695) VALUE, 5, 8 => 2, 3 (2/3) VALUE, 43, 385 => 19, 29 (19/29) ------------------------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------------------------------------------- 6. [Jr, Int, Sr] Bit String Flicking Find all values of x (5 bits long) that satisfy the following equation: (LSHIFT-1 x) XOR (RCIRC-2 (RSHIFT-3 x)) = 10110 ------------------------------------------------------------------- 9. [Jr, Int] Computer Number Systems Binary multiplication can be implemented in terms of shifting and adding. For example, 1011 110111 = 1011 + 10110 + 101100 + 10110000 + 101100000 sums 5 terms, 4 of which have been shifted. The product could also be computed by summing 3 terms (110111, 1101110, and 110111000). To compute the product of A83C216 and E7D0016 by shifting and summing the binary representation of both terms, what is the fewest number of terms that must be summed? ------------------------------------------------------------------- 12. [Sr] Data Structures Pick a node in a binary search tree. Delete it. Now, reinsert that node. Let x be the number of nodes you could pick so that the tree after the insertion is the same as before the deletion. For a tree with 11 distinct nodes, what is the maximum value that x could be? ------------------------------------------------------------------- 14. [Int, Sr] Pascal Programming When the following program is run using the string All-Star! (9 characters long) as input, what are the final values-of variables ltrCt and givenCt? program AllStar91; const given = 'a'; var ltrCt, givenCt: integer; letter: char; begin ltrCt := 0; givenCt := 0; repeat read (letter); if letter in ['a'..'z'] then begin ltrCt := ltrCt + 1; if letter = given then givenCt := givenCt + 1; end; until eoln; end. -------------------------------------------------------------------