National Programming Challenge 🏆🔥

1. Introduction
The CodeChum National Programming Challenge is a national-level
competition designed to test and showcase the programming skills of students
from CodeChum partner schools across the Philippines. Participants shall
compete to demonstrate their problem-solving abilities through challenging
programming tasks.

2. Challenge Format
a. Group Stages: Schools will be divided into three groups, with 20 schools per
group. Each group will go through a series of rounds, leading up to the Grand
Finals where the best teams from each group will compete.

Below is a sample diagram of how the bracketing system for all group stages will
be executed:
b. Structure:
■ Group Stage Rounds
● Preliminary
a. Match 1:
i. Contestants: 5 schools
ii. Winners: Top 3 in leaderboard
b. Match 2:
i. Contestants: 5 schools
ii. Winners: Top 3 in leaderboard
c. Match 3:
i. Contestants: 5 schools
ii. Winners: Top 3 in leaderboard
d. Match 4:
i. Contestants: 5 schools
ii. Winners: Top 3 in leaderboard
● Semifinals
a. Match 5:
i. Contestants: Match 1 winners (3 schools) vs.
Match 2 winners (3 schools)
ii. Winners: Top 3 in leaderboard
b. Match 6:
i. Contestants: Match 3 winners (3 schools) vs.
Match 4 winners (3 schools)
ii. Winners: Top 3 in leaderboard
● Finals
a. Match 7:
i. Contestants: Match 5 winners (3 schools) vs.
Match 6 winners (3 schools)
ii. Winners: Top 3 in leaderboard (will proceed to
Grand Finals)
■ Grand Final Round
● Contestants: Group Stage 1 winners (3 schools) vs. Group Stage
2 winners (3 schools) vs. Group Stage 3 winners (3 schools)
● Winners: Top 3 in leaderboard

c. Scope:
■ Number of items: 8 console application problems per match
■ Topics covered: CodeChum Programming 1
● Programming fundamentals
a. Output operations
b. Escape sequences
c. Placeholders
 d. Input operations
● Operators
a. Arithmetic operators
b. Assignment operators
c. Bitwise operators
● Strings
a. String handling
● Typecasting
a. Typecasting
● Built-in Libraries
a. Predefined character functions
b. Predefined string functions
c. Predefined math functions
● Selection Structures
a. Relational operators
b. Boolean operators
c. If statement
d. If…else statement
e. If…else if…else statement
f. Switch statement
g. Nested decision
● Iterative Structures
a. While loop
b. For loop
c. Nested loop
d. Break
e. Continue
● Arrays
a. One dimensional arrays
b. Two dimensional arrays
c. Array Traversal
d. Allowed tools and languages
■ Tool/s: CodeChum app
■ Languages: C, C++, C#, Java, Python (participants can switch language
between items)
3. Challenge Details
● Schedule
○ Competitions will be held every Wednesday from 5:00 PM to 6:00 PM.
○ Group Stages and Grand Finals are scheduled as follows:
■ Group Stage 1
● Preliminary: September 11
● Semifinals: September 18
● Finals: September 25
■ Group Stage 2
● Preliminary: October 9
● Semifinals: October 16
● Finals: October 23
■ Group Stage 3
● Preliminary: November 13
● Semifinals: November 20
● Finals: November 27
■ Grand Finals: December 11
● Location
○ Participants will join remotely from their school’s computer laboratories
using the CodeChum platform.

4. Registration
a. Eligibility: The competition is open exclusively to schools partnered with
CodeChum in the Philippines. Each school can send one team, but schools with
multiple campuses may send one team per campus.

b. Registration Fee: There is no fee to join the competition.

c. Registration Process:
■ To participate, coaches from each school/campus shall fill out the list of
students for the team in the form of an Excel spreadsheet (click to
download format). The team shall comprise of 10 student participants
from any year level and currently a bonafide student of the partner school.

■ Coaches shall then fill out this registration form to officially register to the
challenge, which will ask for their university name, campus (if
applicable), college name (e.g. CCS Wildcats, OLFU VAL Technocrats,
etc.), and upload the accomplished Excel sheet.
5. Rules and Regulations
a. Code of Conduct
■ All participants are expected to act respectfully and adhere to the
competition’s ethical guidelines. No sharing of solutions is allowed.

b. Setup
■ General
● For all rounds of the competition, participants must be in their
school’s respective computer laboratories. Any unusual login
detected will be detected by the system and shall be subject to
disqualification.

■ Finals and Grand Finals

● Participants will be required to join a Zoom call and shall turn on
their cameras for the entire duration of the match.
● There shall also be a 3rd party camera set up facing at an angle
that shows all the participants in view. This shall be set up by the
coach or anyone from the department, and shall also be shown in
the Zoom call.

c. Scoring System
■ All items in a match are scored the same, with generally the same
difficulty.
■ The team’s score will be the sum of the top 5 students’ scores, which will
be used to rank schools in a match and identify the top 3 winners.
■ In case of a tie in the team score, the total time taken by these top 5
students will be used as a tiebreaker.

d. Disqualification Criteria
■ Switching tabs during the match shall be allowed for the first 3 instances;
however, any additional instances shall deduct 10 points per excess
switch tab count to the suspected participant’s total points.
■ The use of unauthorized tools and resources during the match shall
disqualify the suspected participant from the current match.
■ The use of brute force methods (e.g. manually printing patterns, etc.)
when solving any item in a match shall disqualify the suspected
participant from the current match.
■ Changing of team members at any point in time where the challenge is
ongoing is strictly prohibited. Doing such will subject the team to
disqualification.
6. Prizes and Recognition
a. Group Stage - Finals
■ 1st place:
● Gold CodeChum medal per participant
● Certificate of Recognition per participant
● 12 CodeChum shirts
a. 1 for dean
b. 1 for coach
c. 1 for each participant
● Cash prize - ₱5,000.00
■ 2nd place:
● Silver CodeChum medal per participant
● Certificate of Recognition per participant
● Cash prize - ₱3,000.00
■ 3rd place:
● Bronze CodeChum medal per participant
● Certificate of Recognition per participant
● Cash prize - ₱2,000.00
■ 4th - 6th place:
● Certificate of Recognition per participant
■ Others:
● Certificate of Participation per participant

b. Grand Finals
■ 1st place:
● Gold CodeChum trophy
● Gold CodeChum medal per participant
● Certificate of Recognition per participant
● 12 CodeChum hoodies
a. 1 for dean
b. 1 for coach
c. 1 for each participant
● Cash prize - ₱10,000.00
■ 2nd place:
● Silver CodeChum trophy
● Silver CodeChum medal per participant
● Certificate of Recognition per participant
● Cash prize - ₱5,000.00
■ 3rd place:
● Bronze CodeChum trophy
● Bronze CodeChum medal per participant
 ● Certificate of Recognition per participant
● Cash prize - ₱3,000.00
■ 4th - 9th place:
● Certificate of Recognition per participant

7. Contact Information
a. Support Team
■ Paola Derica Dumadag, Customer Support representative
■ Messenger group chat (with other coaches)
■ FB Page: https://www.facebook.com/codechum
■ Phone: +63 906 2345 128 (Globe), +63 962 574 3594 (Smart)

b. Competition Coordinator
■ Jemar Jude Maranga, CEO
■ FB Page: https://www.facebook.com/jemarjudemaranga