Microsoft's Quantum Team and Codeforces are excited to invite you to Microsoft Q# Coding Contest — Winter 2019!

The contest will run from March 1 to March 4 and will offer increasingly challenging tasks on superposition, measurement, quantum oracles and unitary transformations.

As a reminder, last weekend we held a warmup round with easier tasks on quantum oracles and unitary transformations; the tasks are available for practice here, and the solutions are explained here. You can brush up on the topics of superposition and measurement in the first Q# contest and its warmup round.

Several useful reminders:

• The contest is unrated :-)
• Solutions are accepted only in Q#.
• Participants are ranked according to the number of correctly solved tasks, with the last correct submission time as a tiebreaker.
• The tasks are grouped by topic, and the tasks within one topic are ordered in approximate order of increasing difficulty. If you find a problem too hard, don't forget to check the next problems in this topic and problems from different topics, they might turn out to be easier.
• Submission verdicts work as follows:
  Wrong Answer means that the solution fails any problem-specific checks (such as leaving the qubits in a state other than expected, using measurements in a task which prohibits them or returning incorrect classical value in measurement tasks) or prints anything to the standard output (using Message or DumpMachine functions);
  Runtime Error means that the solution throws a more general exception (for example, caused by releasing allocated qubits in non-zero state or trying to access array elements outside of array bounds);
  Memory Limit Exceeded means that the solution together with the checker allocated more qubits than it is allowed (the limit is ~15 qubits for problems related to quantum oracles with memory limit 1024MB, and ~25 qubits for other types of problems);
  Time Limit Exceeded works the same way as in classical competitions (your program is too slow), but I have to mention it for the sake of completeness :-)
• Custom Invocation allows you to run Q# code on Codeforces servers; make sure your code has namespace Solution and an operation with a signature operation RunQsharp () : Bool defined in it.
• And finally, the really important stuff: the top 50 ranked participants will receive a Microsoft Quantum T-shirt! Here is a preview:

From January, 29 to February, 08, Petrozavodsk State University held the 36th training camp of the strongest student teams in preparation for the ICPC World Finals. The Camp is held since 2001 twice a year (at the end of January and August). This time 53 teams from 33 universities, 21 cities, 10 countries (Russia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Poland, Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, Romania, South Korea, Japan) took part in the competitions.

As part of the Camp, the sixteenth open international competitions for the Cup of the Head of the Republic of Karelia in team programming were held. The current world champions won the cup — a team of MSU: Mikhail Ipatov, Vladislav Makeev, Grigory Reznikov. And they became the best in the final results for all 9 working days of the camp (results).

The Camp was held according to the traditional scheme of 9 working days and two days of rest for recuperation (schedule link). On weekends one could choose different options for outdoor activities: bowling, trampolines, karting.

Hey Codeforces!

We’re thrilled to invite you guys to Codeforces Round #542, which is going to take place on Sunday, February 24, 2019, at 18:35 MSK. There will be a separate round for each division, and they will be rated!

Problems were prepared by MikeMirzayanov, zoomswk and me. As the round authors, we would like to thank ksun48, isaf27, tuna_salad, and Um_nik for testing the problems; 300iq and KAN for their help and advice in contest preparation; and the invisible MikeMirzayanov for the incredible Codeforces and Polygon platforms.

Each division will be given 6 tasks and 2 hours to solve them. As per the Codeforces tradition, scoring distributions will be revealed shortly before the round.

We wish you the greenest verdicts and hope that you’ll enjoy the tasks.

This round is in honor of Alex Lopashev who has supported Codeforces on its anniversary. Some words from MikeMirzayanov:

Alex Lopashev studied at Programming Competitions Training Center (in Saratov U) headed by me. I was really happy (and even proud!) to see his contribution on the 8th anniversary of Codeforces. I am sure that a large number of young people got a lot from our community, even if they did not achieve high results in competitions. It's great that there are those who remember and appreciate it. Thank you, Alex!

Good luck!

UPD1: Shortly after the contest, we'll be on the community Discord server to discuss the tasks.

UPD2: The score distributions are here!

Div2: 500 – 1000 – 1500 – (1000 – 1000) – 2500 – 3000

Div1: 500 – 1000 – 1500 – 2000 – 2500 – 2500

Note that task D of the second division will have subtasks.

UPD3: Last minute corrections T-T

Each division will be given 5 tasks. Also, task A of the first division will have subtasks like the way task D of the second division round do.

Div2: 500 – 1000 – 1500 – (1000 – 1000) – 2500

Div1: (250 – 250) – 1000 – 1500 – 2250 – 2250

UPD4: The Editorial is ready!

Congratulations to the winners!

Division 2

1. Markadiusz
2. kizen
3. TAISA_
4. ista2000
5. OnlyGetAC

Division 1

1. mnbvmar
2. LHiC
3. Errichto
4. vintage_Vlad_Makeev
5. V--o_o--V

Hi everybody,

This Sunday there will be a Moscow programming competition for school students of grades from 6 to 9. This contest is prepared by Moscow Olympiad Scientific Committee that you may know by Moscow Open Olympiad, Moscow Team Olympiad and Metropolises Olympiad (rounds 327, 342, 345, 376, 401, 433, 441, 466, 469, 507, 516).

Round will be held at 10:05 UTC on Saturday. You will be given 6 problems and 2 hours to solve them. Round will be rated for second division (rating below 2100). As usual, participants from the first division can participate in a contest out of competition.

Problems are prepared by vintage_Vlad_Makeev, grphil, cdkrot, VFeafanov, Sehnsucht, Sender, voidmax under my supervision.

Thanks to cdkrot for the round coordination and statement translation, and also thanks for MikeMirzayanov for systems Codeforces and Polygon, which was used to prepare problems of this olympiad.

Good luck everybody!

UPD1: Due to some last-minute changes, there will be 7 problems.

UPD2: Winners!

Div 2:

1. Big_gold_date

2. PinkieRabbit

3. disposrestfuIIy

4. Dobrobober

5. szh0808

6. prodakcin

7. Argentina

8. afedor

9. bigelephant29

10. Young25

Div.1 + Div.2:

1. JustasK

2. BigBag

3. Egor.Lifar

4. Big_gold_date

5. waynetuinfor

6. dreamoon_love_AA

7. danya090699

8. KrK

9. Farhod

10. PinkieRabbit

UPD3: Editorial

Microsoft’s Quantum team is excited to announce the Q# Coding Contest – Winter 2019! In this contest you can put your quantum programming skills to the test, solving quantum computing tasks in Q#. Winners will receive a Microsoft Quantum T-shirt!

Quantum computing is a radically different computing paradigm compared to classical computing. Indeed, it is so different that some tasks that are believed to be classically intractable (such as factoring integers or simulating physical systems) can be performed efficiently on a quantum computer. In 2017 Microsoft introduced the Quantum Development Kit which includes the Q# programming language. Q# can be used with Visual Studio, Visual Studio Code or the command line, on Windows, macOS, and Linux.

In summer of 2018 we hosted the first quantum programming contest, which included problems on introductory topics in quantum computing: superposition, measurement, quantum oracles and simple algorithms. This contest will offer harder problems on some of these topics as well as introduce some new topics.

The contest will run from March 1 to March 4.

Miss Div. 3 rounds? :)

<copy-pasted-part>

Hello!

Codeforces Round 540 (Div. 3) will start at Feb/19/2019 17:35 (Moscow time). You will be offered 6 or 7 problems with expected difficulties to compose an interesting competition for participants with ratings up to 1600. Probably, participants from the first division will not be at all interested by this problems. And for 1600-1899 the problems will be too easy. However, all of you who wish to take part and have rating 1600 or higher, can register for the round unofficially.

The round will be hosted by rules of educational rounds (extended ACM-ICPC). Thus, during the round, solutions will be judged on preliminary tests, and after the round it will be a 12-hour phase of open hacks. I tried to make strong tests — just like you will be upset if many solutions fail after the contest is over.

You will be given 6 or 7 (or 8) problems and 2 hours to solve them.

Note that the penalty for the wrong submission in this round (and the following Div. 3 rounds) is 10 minutes.

Remember that only the trusted participants of the third division will be included in the official standings table. As it is written by link, this is a compulsory measure for combating unsporting behavior. To qualify as a trusted participants of the third division, you must:

• take part in at least two rated rounds (and solve at least one problem in each of them),
• do not have a point of 1900 or higher in the rating.

Regardless of whether you are a trusted participant of the third division or not, if your rating is less than 1600, then the round will be rated for you.

Thanks to MikeMirzayanov for the platform, help with ideas for problems and for coordination of my work. Thanks to my good friends Mikhail awoo Piklyaev, Maksim Neon Mescheryakov and Ivan BledDest Androsov for help in round preparation and testing the round.

Good luck!

I also would like to say that participants who will submit wrong solutions on purpose and hack them afterwards (example) will not be shown in the hacking leaders table.

</copy-pasted-part>

UPD0: I also would like to thank zimpha and Arpa for help with the round testing and finding some bugs!

UPD: Due to the problems being really interesting the round will last 2 hours 15 minutes.

UPD2:

Congratulations to the winners:

Congratulations to the best hackers:

And finally people who were the first to solve each problem:

UPD3: Editorial is published!

Hello Codeforces!

On Feb/18/2019 18:40 (Moscow time) Educational Codeforces Round 60 (Rated for Div. 2) will start.

Series of Educational Rounds continue being held as Harbour.Space University initiative! You can read the details about the cooperation between Harbour.Space University and Codeforces in the blog post.

This round will be rated for the participants with rating lower than 2100. It will be held on extented ICPC rules. The penalty for each incorrect submission until the submission with a full solution is 10 minutes. After the end of the contest you will have 12 hours to hack any solution you want. You will have access to copy any solution and test it locally.

You will be given 7 problems and 2 hours to solve them.

The problems were invented and prepared by Roman Roms Glazov, Adilbek adedalic Dalabaev, Vladimir vovuh Petrov, Ivan BledDest Androsov, Abizer Reziba Lokhandwala and me.

Good luck to all participants!

Our friends at Harbour.Space also have a message for you:

Attention tech specialists!

Harbour.Space Barcelona is proud to announce a collaboration with one of our industrial partners to offer a fully funded scholarship for our one year Master’s in Data Science Programme at HSU Barcelona.

The Scholarship includes:

• Full coverage of the Programme’s tuition fee (€23,000 value)
• 3 hours of study a day at Harbour.Space University
• 4 hours of internship a day with one of our industrial partners
• €12,000 euros a year (living allowance)

Our data science programme will feature super star teachers like Mike Mirzayanov (Advanced Algorithms and Data Structures), Alexey Dral (Big Data: Map Reduce, Spark, BigTable/HBase) and Alex Dainiak (Discrete Optimisation), plus many more.

Harbour.Space is unique because:

1. We don’t play by the rules. We bring practicing professionals, not only academic teachers, who come teach for intense, 3 week modules. HSU students are encouraged to experiment, fail, and try again, until they succeed.

2. We are your home. Harbour.Space is a community of over 40 nationalities, and we're still growing.

3. We provide an experience. Harbour.Space University is located in Barcelona, one of the most vibrant cities of our time.

If you are interested in the scholarship, fill out the form below and we will contact you about the next steps.

Congratulations to the winners:

Congratulations to the best hackers:

And finally people who were the first to solve each problem:

UPD: The editorial is out

Good day to you, Codeforces!

Let me introduce you Codeforces Round #539, that will take place at Saturday, February 16, 2019 at 19:35. The round will be rated for both divisions.

The problems of this round were developed by markysha, xolm, aleex. That is our first round on Codeforces, and I hope not the last one :)

Thanks everyone who helped with tasks preparation:

• Our coordinator arsijo for his help with everything
• Thanks very much 244mhq, Mediocrity, sharepoLOVEDDD, austrian_artist, Adalbert, stanislav.bezkorovainyi, Fekete and Daryusz for testing this round (yeah, we approached testing thoroughly :))
• gepardo for playing a crutial role in the contest (what? you'll see)
• And of course MikeMirzayanov for Polygon and Codeforces.

There will be 6 tasks and 2 hours 30 minutes to solve them. As usual, the score distribution will be revealed shortly before the contest.

Wish you quick ideas and short solutions!

Upd.
Div. 1: 500 — 1250 — 1750 — 1750 — 2250 — 3000
Div. 2: 500 — 1000 — 1500 — 2250 — 2750 — 2750

Editorial

Final results are ready!

Div 1:
1. Um_nik
2. jqdai0815 (was so close...)
3. knightL
4. Swistakk
5. ToTLeS

Div 2:
1. schtamas
2. CheimaKH
3. revivedDevil
4. zhed
5. 1100011101

Congratulations to the winners!

Maybe see you later...