The UCF Programming Team is selected by the faculty advisor and coaches after the UCF Local Programming Contest, which is typically held on one of the first two Saturdays of each Fall semester.

We welcome all UCF students to join our weekly practices, whether you make the team or not! Students who train with the team for even just one semester usually find themselves highly-ranked in the next Local Programming Contest!

To make sure you announcements about contests and practices, please contact Dr. Ali Orooji and ask to be added to his mailing list.  He is located in Room 345 of the Harris Engineering Center, or you can use the contact form on this web site.

If you are looking for a student for part-time work, please check with the Department of Computer Science, Career Services, or the Business Incubation Program.

If your company would like to sponsor a team practice and speak to the group for a few minutes about internships or full-time employment after graduation, please contact Dr. Orooji.

Otherwise, please check with the Department of Computer Science, Career Services, or the Business Incubation Program.

The International Collegiate Programming Contest has specific eligibility criteria.  Please see the criteria at their web site.  However, if you think are ineligible, please see Dr. Ali Orooji as waivers are sometimes possible (he can provide you more information).  He is located in Harris Engineering Center, Room 345, or you can contact him by phone at 407-823-5660 or through our contact form on this web site.

Not at all!  All majors are welcome.

In recent years, a number of Computer Engineering and Electrical Engineering majors have made the team and contributed to our success! There have also been team members who have graduated UCF with degrees such as Math, Biology, Psychology, and Business Administration.

Certainly!

Please note that the team members are chosen in the first few weeks of each Fall semester, however, so please be sure to contact Dr. Orooji to get the information so you don't miss it!  He is located in Room 345 in the Harris Engineering Center, or contact him by phone at 407-823-5660 or through our contact form.

Freshmen and Sophomores are strongly encouraged to join us for our Fall practices, even if they don't get a spot on the team. Training with the team for just one semester can make a huge difference in your ranking at the next UCF Local Programming Contest!

One of the goals of the Developmental Team has been to provide competition training to eligible women in Computer Science. We are proud to have women on teams representing UCF at multiple contests, in some contests winning or placing highly!

Official eligibility criteria are listed at the ICPC web site.  However, at this time neither a minimum age nor a maximum age is given.  If you have been out of high school for five years or in college for eight semesters or more, a waiver may be necessary.  Please consult the web site and discuss your eligibility with Dr. Orooji if you are in this situation.  He is in Room 345 in the Harris Engineering Center or contact him by phone at 407-823-5660 or through our contact form.

It takes hard work to be a champion!  Our training begins with about ten Saturday practices each during the Fall and Spring semesters.  Each practice typically includes a 1-hour lecture, a 1-hour problem review and a 5-hour mock contest.

In addition, team members also meet with their coaches during the week, work on algorithms and other problem solving techniques at home, and work collaboratively with their fellow team members.

All the effort is worth it, however, when we win!  You also will reinforce your computer science curriculum and become a better programmer!

Thanks to our generous donors, stipends may be available to cover a large portion of many of our team members' training time. This is intended to reduce or replace the need for team members to work at a part-time job, so that they can accelerate their training instead. Getting paid to write code is more fun than flipping burgers!

It takes serious training to become a champion, and it's even harder to balance training time against school, family, and work obligations.

Thanks to our generous donors, stipends may be available to cover a large portion of many of our team members' training time. This is intended to reduce or replace the need for team members to work at a part-time job, so that they can accelerate their training instead. Getting paid to write code is more fun than flipping burgers!

Availability of funds may vary year to year, and amounts may vary by individual circumstances. For instance, team members who choose to work at a part-time job in addition to their training may receive a reduced amount. Note that UCF may limit total compensation from the university, so a teaching assistantship (for example) may reduce or disallow a team stipend.

Thanks to generous donors and the financial support of the College of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, the team will provide means to cover most of the costs of attending the Regional contest and World Finals.  This includes the transportation, registration, and hotel costs during the event.  In most cases, team members may have to provide some funds for personal items he/she may want (extra food, souvenirs, etc.).

ACM-ICPC World Finals are held throughout the world.  Recent sites have been in Russia, Thailand, Morocco, Poland, China, the Czech Republic, and in the USA (San Antonio, South Dakota).

ICPC Regional contests are held within our region (the Southeast USA Region, which includes the states of Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, Alabama and Mississippi).  Typically, multiple sites are used so we attend a site that is relatively close to UCF.

UCF Local Contests are typically held in a computer lab on campus, with a registration/orientation session in an auditorium. Watch for announcements to see the location for each contest.

All of these contests require competitors to be physically present at the contest site, unlike online/web-based contests.

The UCF Programming Team are all "Knights" first and foremost!  But due to the ICPC rules of 3 students per team, we form multiple teams, and have to distinguish them from each other.  In recent years, the coaches have provided a theme, such as "math terms ending in X" or "mythical places" and let the members of each team choose their own name.