ACM 'Rise Above the Monkey' Software Design Competition Official Rules
Teams
Teams shall consist of up to four team members. All competitors shall be university students. We encourage but do not require that teams be composed of students from the same university. Teams must be registered at http://acm.cs.umn.edu/SDC/csignup.php before Sunday, March 1. On that day, the requirements document for the design challenge will be posted on the competition website (http://acm.cs.umn.edu/sdc2009). No competitor will have prior knowledge of the challenge. All teams will address the same design challenge. Teams are expected to work independently and not collaborate with other competitors.
Competition Overview
Teams are expected to develop their design over the course of the week. Teams are not required to perform any programming. Each team will be required to create a User Interface (UI) design, entity relationship diagram, and an overall system architecture design. The competition places no limitations or expectations on how these designs should be presented. For example, the system architecture may be specified in a formal UML diagram, or it could be a series of Class-Responsibility-Collaboration (CRC) Cards. The UI can be presented as a napkin sketch or a formal prototype. Deliverables will be judged on the quality and clarity of ideas, not on the particular engineering paradigm used to express them.
On Wednesday, March 4, teams are required to submit a progress report to their mentors. At this time, teams are also required to post on the SDC blog an account of their experience thus far, with a focus on what challenges have been encountered.
The competition will be judged on Saturday, March 7th. This is the only time that all teams are required to gather in one location. When the teams arrive, they will be given a requirements change. The teams will have one hour to create informal design revisions and prepare to answer questions during their presentations about how the change affected their system.
Each team will give three 15-minute presentations, each for a separate panel of judges. The presentations will separately address user interface, database design, and overall system architecture. During their presentations, competitors should specify the technology(hardware and/or software platforms) they would choose to use for each major component and explain why they chose them. Teams should be prepared to address followup questions from the judges after each presentation. Teams are encouraged to watch other presentations once they have completed their own.
After presentations are complete there will be a catered dinner, followed by an awards ceremony. Prizes will be awarded for 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place, as well as an additional award for "Best use of Microsoft Technology". Participation in the Microsoft category is completely optional. All teams will be scored on the same standard rubric.
Competition Deliverables
All competition deliverables are to be considered property of the ACM student chapter and may be distributed without the prior consent of competitors. ACM promises to only share documents as well as the names and email addresses of their creators to sponsoring companies. Sponsoring companies have agreed to use this information solely for the purpose of campus recruiting and will not use this information to market towards student competitors. All sponsoring companies are featured prominately on the competition website.
For the competition, teams will prepare
- 3 presentations to be given to judges - LCD projectors and document cameras will be made available to any group who wishes to use them in their presentations. If the team chooses to use a powerpoint, it is recommended that hard copies be provided for the judges and an electronic copy sent to ACM.
- 4 copies of all design documentation - All competing teams must bring along 4 hard copies of their design documentation, including entity relation diagrams, UML diagrams, and copies or screen shots of prototypes. Copies of these documents must also be emailed to ACM at acm.uofm.officers@gmail.com by noon on March 7.
- Mentor update - competing teams should provide their mentors with a quick update on or before Wednesday, March 4
- Blog post - Competing teams must make a brief blog post about a challenge they are facing in their designs on or before Wednesday, March 4
Mentors
Each team will have access to industry and faculty mentors. During the course of the week the mentor will be accessible via email and online forums. Each team is encouraged to direct questions to their mentor, who will escalate the question to the planning committee and volunteer board if necessary. The mentor will also act as the "customer" with respect to clarifying requirements and delivering any changes. Teams are not required to meet face-to-face with a mentor during the competition.
Rule clarifications and changes
Any changes to the rules or requirements during the week will be emailed to all participants and posted to the website. It is the responsibility of competitors to monitor these changes during the week.
Please post any questions about these rules using the comments feature below. Judges, mentors and admins will monitor the comments and make clarifications as needed.
