Intel has officially announced its Threading Challenge 2009, a programming contest that will be implemented in two phases.
- Phase 1 begins on April 6, 2009 and ends July 3 2009.
- Phase 2 begins on August 17, 2009 and ends November 13, 2009.
Each phase consists of six separate problems and contestants can participate in one or more problem sets. Each problem will be announced every 2nd Monday after the first problem is posted within the phase. Each problem will be open for participation for 19 days. Entries must be received by Midnight on Friday of the third consecutive week after the problem is revealed. Prizes for individual problems will be given for points scored on both a solution code and solution write-up. The grand prize winner for each phase will be awarded to the participant with the highest cumulative point total of three or fewer problems and write-ups within that phase.
The contest requires participants to solve a programming problem, submit their code for judging and complete a write-up on their work. You can submit Solutions to one or more problems during each phase. There will be points awarded for each Solution to a problem and the solution write-up, according to the following criteria:
- 0-100 points for solving a problem with efficiency and speed in mind.
- 0-50 points for solution write-up which includes a description of the problem to be solved, which may include description of the serial algorithm, and input/output format
- parallel algorithm description , which may include the method used for threading and why it was chosen, any changes to the serial algorithm necessary, special languages/threading used,
Detailed rules are available here.
A grand prize will be awarded at the end of each phase to the individual with the highest number of cumulative points from 3 of the 6 problems within that phase. No points will be carried over from Phase 1 to Phase 2. The grand prize (a Netbook) will be awarded to the individual with the highest number of cumulative points from the 3 highest scored problems within the current contest phase.
