Students will be taught how to get the ideal coding environment set up for competition and practice. They will also be introduced to tips and good habits conducive for coding competition performance. Through solving Problem 1, students will learn about benchmarking and certain sorting techniques.

Through optimizing the solution for Problem 1, students will be taught binary search and an implementation of dictionary with C++, and gain insight into how algorithm affects performance. The class will also review previous assignment.

Through solving Problem 2, students will learn techniques in surveying a problem in order to generate crucial insight. The instructor will demonstrate how to implement circular lists as well as how to perform depth-first search with recursion. There will also be a brief discussion of breadth-first search and a review of previous assignments.

Through solving Problem 3, students will practice reading comprehension of complex ideas. They will also be introduced to basic combinatorics that are useful for problem solving. The target problem will demonstrate how basic algebra can be applied to greatly optimize a solution. A discussion about Big-O notation will help them gain intuition about time efficiency of a solution. There will also be a review of previous assignments.

Through solving Problem 4, students will be introduced to advanced logic concepts. They will also further exercise reading comprehension. The problem will demonstrate the power of caching and how the right choice of data structure affects performance. There will also be a review of previous assignments.

Through solving Problem 5, students will learn how to implement depth-first search with iteration instead of recursion. Problem 5 will also lead to further practice of reading comprehension exercises. Students will also learn the basics of set operations (check uniques/duplicates, union, etc.) and how to implement them in C++. There will also be a review of previous assignments.

Through solving Problem 6, students will learn how to deal with very difficult “black hole problems” that can suck up too much time. The problem will demonstrate how to take advantage of a narrow “range” to optimize a solution. Students will learn how to engage a problem in order to grasp key characteristics that can simplify a solution. They will also learn how to spot redundant computations that will lead to a reduction of looping complexity by orders of magnitude (review of Big-O notation). There will also be a review of previous assignments.

Through solving Problem 7, students will learn how to think about border cases and how to find shortcut to a problem through sorting. Students will also learn how to implement complex conditional loops for optimal performance. Students will take home 3 fundamental drills to fortify their skills for the upcoming competition event. There will also be a review of previous assignments.