In one problem, contestants were asked to calculate the minimum number of cellular base stations needed for a mobile phone to be moved from one city to another with no loss of reception. Competitors were given a map with cities, roads and base stations.

Another problem challenged contestants to determine how much sunlight a Shanghai apartment management company could promise tenants on April 6, 2005. The students were provided information when the sun rises and sets on that date, as well as a drawing of the buildings and apartments.

Those problems are very unrealistic. I want to see a programming contest with the following.

Contestants where asked to build an employee management website for internal use. The system is expected to work with two existing propritary systems and integrate with the existing budget system, which consists of a bunch of Excel files. Competitors where given no other information, not told what information about employee's had to be held, what security had to be enforced, nor told what the existing systems they had to work with where. Information about the budget system was provided in the form of a single excel file that has been modified to remove any information that the employees are not allowed to see.

Contestants where asked to build an online shopping system for a small company. Contestants where provided with example screens, complete product listings, a full site diagram, processing flow chart and working examples of the credit card processing system. 5 minutes before the competition deadline they where given a revised specification that required changing the entire system and handeling a different incompatible billing system.

Jay