The main objective of the educational process of the Prahova County Centre of Excellence is to support the development of students capable of performance and to enhance their individual capacities to the highest level. The necessity of differentiated schooling has already been successfully implemented in highly developed countries. This fact has decisively contributed to their sustainable development and economic success through their capacity of producing highly qualified and motivated individuals, with distinguished intellectual and moral qualities, capable of excelling and pushing the boundaries of human knowledge.

Learning through permanent assessment, using advanced methods and technology, will lead to the formation of young people adaptable to the needs and requirements of the Computer Science world, which is in continuous progress.

The main purpose of this project is to offer all students equal chances at participating in a training session in order to achieve high levels of performance in the field of Computer Science, to stimulate their passion for the subject of Informatics and also to promote the youngsters capable of such performances. The starting point was the idea that the stimulation of competitiveness is a strong support for the act of education at its highest standards. The objectives of the competition are the following:

• to encourage the children gifted in the field of Informatics and the assessment of their knowledge on both theoretical and practical levels, with a view to initiating projects meant to provide them with training according to the degree of performance they have achieved;
• to stimulate professional collaboration between teachers and students, as the teams enrolled in this competition are coordinated and trained by specialised teachers and the members of the technical teams consist of both teachers and students that pride themselves on numerous and high performances;
• to provide an exchange of experience between the members and coordinators of the teams at an international level;
• to promote on social media the highly intelligent young children who are passionate about Informatics and technology.

The team leader is responsible for enforcing these rules for their team(s). Every contestant is expected to be physically proctored by the team leader or by a person appointed by them.

The proctors for each contest site must be communicated before the first contest day of the competition (preparation day with systems check is not considered a contest day). Each contest site must have at least two proctors.

Proctors must not be a relative of any of the proctored contestants.

Proctors must make sure that contestants don’t do the following:

• try to gain access to the root or administrator user;
• try to establish communication with another system, via chat, remote shell or desktop sharing (Team Viewer, Anydesk, Remote Desktop etc);
• try to attack the contest server;
• try to (directly or indirectly) access any online resources;

Each contest site must be recorded for the entirety of the contest. Multiple feeds can be used from multiple angles for the same contest site.

The recordings must capture the faces of all contestants and the presence of at least one proctor. We should be able to determine from the recordings whether contestants are at their computers and if there is a proctor in the room at all times.

The screens of all contestants must also be recorded. The recording must be of the full display, and the output video must have at least 5 frames per second and 640 x 360 resolution.

For screen recording, you can use Kazam on Linux, or OBS Studio on Windows or Linux. This is only a recommendation.

At the end of each round you must send by email a download/access link to the recordings of each team, within 24 hours, to contact@info1cup.com with the subject Recording Day [Day Number] [Team Leader Registration Username] (eg., for the first day of contest, for the team with the team leader's registration username romania1, the email’s subject must be: Recording Day 1 romania1).

Each registered team consists of a minimum of 2 and up to 4 participants and a maximum of 2 team leaders.

Only students born on and after January 1st, 2007 can participate. The competition consists of tasks carried out individually by the contestants. All of the teams will be able to participate based on an invitation from the Prahova County Centre of Excellence. After the invitation is received, each team will enter its information and componence on our online registration page, by clicking the Register button found on the home page.

Both of the rounds will be held following the same technical rules:

• Each student can visualize the personal credentials for the upcoming round on the register page (linked from www.info1cup.com, beginning with January 31st), along with a link to easily access the contest platform (CMS).
• For each round, the tasks can be translated into each participant's mother language.
• It is the responsibility of each team leader to validate the team according to the rules. If any issues arise during the registration process, the team leader should contact the technical team at contact@info1cup.com.

All of the tasks in infO(1) Cup are designed to be algorithmic in nature. Efficiency plays an important role in some tasks. Whenever efficiency of an algorithm is important, test cases will be designed to differentiate between solutions with different levels of efficiency; thus, the smallest test cases will be designed so that any reasonable correct solution for the tasks can solve them within the task constraints. Therefore, it is worthwhile to attempt a task even if the contestant does not know how to solve large test cases within the constraints.

The problem set of this competition will consist of 3 tasks per round and the amount of time students have in order to solve them will be communicated on the day corresponding to each of the rounds.

Tasks may be of the following types:

• Batch tasks: Solutions comprise a single source file of a computer program which reads data from standard input and writes its answer to standard output.
• Interactive tasks: Solutions comprise a single source file of a computer program which interacts with an “opponent” program provided by the organizers. The interactive interface may be implemented either by using standard input/output, or by linking modules provided by the contestant and the organizers.
• Output-only tasks: The contestants are given input files and they have to produce correct output files by any means available

For every task other than output-only tasks, the following limits will be enforced on the contestants’ submissions:

• Time limit: A limit on the total processor time the process may consume while solving a given input;
• Memory limit: A limit on the total amount of memory the process may have allocated at any moment. Note that this limit includes not only the variables, but also the executable code, global data, the stack, etc. There is no separate limit on the stack size;
• Program size : No submitted program may exceed 100 kB in size. The size of the compiled program must not exceed 5 MB. Maximum compilation time is 10 seconds.

The syllabus of the infO(1)Cup is the same as the syllabus of the International Olympiad of Informatics.

The accepted programming languages are C and C++.

During the rounds, students will benefit from either partial or full feedback, depending on the case.

The solutions will be evaluated using the evaluation system integrated into the infO(1) platform, which is identical to the one used at the International Olympiad of Informatics. This evaluation is automatic, each candidate obtaining a score of 0 to 100 points for each task.

After the evaluation process and the competition have ended, the following will be published on the website: the solutions and statements of the problems, the inputs and outputs used in the evaluation process and the editorials.

The maximum number of submissions will be announced on the day of the round. During the rounds, students will benefit from either partial or full feedback, depending on the case.

Given that the contestants are provided with real-time feedback during the rounds, and relying on the regulations adopted by the International Olympiad of Informatics, appeals are not allowed.

The final ranking will consist of the sum of the final scores obtained in both rounds by the students part of the invited teams, in decreasing order. The contestants placed in the top of the final ranking will be awarded with electronic certificates. The awarding ceremony will be livestreamed on our Youtube channel.

The regulations of the competition can be changed annually, depending on the technical modifications that may occur, at the justified proposal of the organisers.

The Principal of the Prahova County Centre of Excellence: Teacher Lica Elena Daniela