General Information
The competition will be conducted online. We will be using the platforms Discord and HackerRank. Discord will be used to monitor participants to ensure fair play and will be the main means of communication and hosting.
SOFTWARE REQUIREMENTS
Any suitable operating system: Windows 7 or higher, or MacOS 10.11 or higher. Participants’ system must have an internal or external mic, camera and speaker, and must support screen sharing on discord. Participants must have Discord installed on their system. The competition will be conducted on the HackerRank website. All participants must create a HackerRank account for the same.
CATEGORIES
CATH CON will have two categories of minimum 200 participants for each:
- Junior – Grades 8 – 10
- Senior – Grade 11 and 12
Each category will have 4 rounds.
PREREQUISITES
LANGUAGES: Fluency in Java, Python or C++
TOPICS TO BE TESTED: Conditionals, Loops (Nested & Non-Nested), Arrays (Single & Double Dimensional, and may need to be mutable), String Handling and simple algorithms and manipulation techniques for all the same.
AWARDS
1st place- INR. 5,000
2nd place- INR. 3,000
3rd Place- INR. 2,000
All participants will be awarded participation certificates.
FACTORS FOR JUDGING
- Accuracy
- Time taken to complete
THE EVENT
ROUND STRUCTURE
The competition shall consist of a total of 4 rounds divided into three sets as outlined below. For each round only the first response of each participant shall be counted.
Set 1 Qualifier Rounds
Qualifier 1 (Q1) – On Saturday, 16th August, 2025 11:00 AM
Participants from each category shall attempt two questions, common to the entire category, per round. The time limit for each round will be 1.5 hours. The rounds shall be of increasing difficulty of questions. The rounds shall be conducted on the CATH CON 2025 Discord Server and the participants of each category shall be divided into 5 groups of 10 participants each, with each group connected to a different voice channel for ease of invigilation. Each such group shall have one invigilator. Participants shall keep their videos on and mics unmuted.
The participants shall be ranked based on their average score on the two rounds as per the scoring guidelines outlined below. After such ranking, the top 25 participants from each category shall qualify to participate in the final round and the remaining participants shall be eliminated.
Qualifier 2 (Q2) – On Saturday, 16th August, 2025 5:00 PM
Participants from each category shall attempt two questions, common to the entire category, per round. The time limit for each round will be 1.5 hours. The rounds shall be of increasing difficulty of questions. The rounds shall be conducted on the CATH CON 2025 Discord Server and the participants of each category shall be divided into 5 groups of 10 participants each, with each group connected to a different voice channel for ease of invigilation. Each such group shall have one invigilator. Participants shall keep their videos on and mics unmuted.
The participants shall be ranked based on their average score on the two rounds as per the scoring guidelines outlined below. After such ranking, the top 25 participants from each category shall qualify to participate in the final round and the remaining participants shall be eliminated.
Set 2: Finals Round
Finals (F) – On Sunday, 17th August, 2025 5:00 PM
The qualified top 25 junior participants shall attempt one medium question and the qualified top 25 senior participants shall attempt one hard question. Such a round shall last for one hour. Questions shall be common within each entire category. The round shall be conducted on the CATH CON 2025 Discord Server and the participants of each category shall be divided into 3 groups of 10 participants each, with each group connected to a different voice channel for ease of invigilation. Each such group shall have two invigilators. Participants shall keep their videos on and mics unmuted and SHALL BE REQUIRED to share their screen as well.
The participants shall be ranked based on their score of the finals round (F), only, as per the scoring guidelines outlined below. After such ranking, the top 10 participants from each category will be awarded a certificate of distinction. The rest of the participants shall be awarded participation certificates.
Please note that all timings are in Indian Standard Time (IST)
SCORING GUIDELINES
All participants shall be ranked based on their combined score across all rounds within a given set. The scoring system is designed to evaluate and rank participants based on the accuracy of their code submissions within each set.
In the event of a tie in accuracy, the time taken to complete the tasks shall be used as the first tie-breaker. If a tie still persists, participants may either be awarded a tie in that set or have their ranking determined by the CATH CON team, based on additional evaluation rubrics.
The decision of the CATH CON team shall be final, binding, and undisputed.