What we learned from the October ACSIMC.

The October ACSIMC was a crazy experience, however compared to previous ACSIMCs, it was our best one yet.

Competition Overview

There were 336 members in the series, with 181 people actually participating:

ARCHIMEDES: 56 people

STOKES: 72 people

RUTHERFORD: 53 people

We had no major technical issues.

This competition was administered through Quantix Arena. An online testing administration software developed by Yudhish K.

• Quantix Arena is able to detect when users leave the competition webpage and is able to:

  • Auto Check Answers

  • Submit tests at a certain time

  • Provide users with results using a password system

  • Support LaTeX implementation

What we did differently

This competition we tried to optimize everything. In July, the appeal windows didn’t give us enough time to review and update results which led to numerous delays.

This competition we made our schedule with built in buffers, clear timings for appeals which made it easier for us to know who qualified for each round. Quantix Arena was also a big help in ensuring that everything on the backend was either optimized or extremely easy to set up.

This also gave us time to sit back and focus on more of the fine details.

The reduced backend work allowed us to focus on problem writing, and according to feedback form responses, we had a major improvement in quality compared to July.

The Future

We already are working on the Feburary competition as well as a tentative date. We are working on improving Quantix Arena, both on the backend and frontend for competitors.

We are planning to onboard more problem writers and scale the ACSIMC significantly.