General

Team members may bring headphones for noise cancellation purposes.  Headphones may not be connected to any competitor-owned equipment, such as phones, MP3 players, etc, as these are not permitted by the National CPTC rules.

We provide several regions to allow teams to participate. In general we prefer teams to participate in a region that is close to their institution.  This helps to reduce the cost of teams traveling to the regional host location and allows more teams to participate.  During the team signup period, a primary region will be requested from each team, as well as a prioritized list of other regions where your team may be willing to participate. In the event we have open spots in another region that may make logistical sense, we will work with your institution and may assign you to another region in the event you are able to travel.  Regions are filled on a first come, first served basis with a waitlist maintained after the regions becomes full.

Teams may not access any private accounts on the host computers, jumpboxes, or production systems. However, teams may use Spotify, or Pandora to stream music without logging in. We cannot guarantee that any host system or training room will have any audio equipment available. 

For BYOD regions, if a team member has Spotify on their laptop, they above rules still apply. No private accounts may be accessed.

Due to the space requirements we need to limit the number of teams that can participate within each region and once sign-ups are open, fill the region on a first come, first served basis.  Once a region has reached it’s capacity, we will then start to form a waitlist.  As the regional events dates approach, we will fill waitlist slots purely on a first-come, first-served basis regardless of location.  Given the logistical requirements, we will work with the first teams on the waitlist to match open spots to those teams which can travel to that region.  

Due to regionals typically being extended over several weekends, we may end up inviting a waitlisted team to compete as late as two weeks before the scheduled regional event, in the event of a team being unable to compete.

At all CPTC events, teams consist of up to six members competing within the environment.  One of the six members is designated as the Team Captain, who will be the primary point of contact for the team before the competition.  Each team must also have a Coach, whom is a full time employee of their school or organization (or a designated full time professional delegated officially from the university; however, in this case please contact CPTC for additional information).  Finally, each school may designate two alternate team members who will be available in the event primary team members are not available.

While this may change from region to region, depending on their sponsors, in general room, board, and travel will be the responsibility of the participating teams.

We consider CPTC to be a fall semester event, with students being eligible to compete if they are full time during that semester.   Specifically, we want students to be considered full time when the regional event occurs. So if they graduate in September, they would not be eligible for this season. If they graduated late November/December, they would be eligible.  As long as a student is eligible for the regional event we will consider them eligible for finals even if they were to graduate between the two events.

Yes, alternates should sign the non-disclosure agreement, as they may end up participating in a CPTC event in the event a primary team member is not available to compete.

Teams should only use their region name and team number for any communications during CPTC events.  This is to anonymize deliverables and ensure fairness in scoring for all teams during the competition. 

We also ask that teams refrain from wearing apparel which identifies their university or team during the competition hours of CPTC events.  This includes time spent in the team rooms and any presentations.  Teams are welcome to wear school apparel during awards ceremonies and any social events outside of competition hours.

During the CPTC event, you will access the competition environment through a Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) system over a WireGuard VPN connection.  The computing resources available at each regional event will be at the discretion of the regional host: some regions will provide computers for each competing team, and others will have all competitors participate via a BYOD (bring your own device) method.  

Your regional host will provide details about what to expect at the competition and any arrangements that need to be made to ensure your personal devices are able to have Internet access at the event. 

At the CPTC Global finals, all teams will be provided with workstations in their competition rooms.  Each team member’s machine will be equipped with a single monitor so that all competitors will have the same user experience in the environment. 

Competitors may be asked to provide an IP address where their traffic will be sourced from, each address will be limited to a single connection to a Windows host. Competitors using BYOD environments will be responsible for ensuring that their device has a WireGuard VPN client installed and can access the competition VDI systems.

What is the policy regarding generative AI? I know the rules mention “outside assistance” but interested in a more concrete answer. Is generative AI considered outside assistance? Or does that refer to just non-competing team members.

The rules around outside assistance are primarily intended to address help from non-team members.  If you choose to use generative AI, please keep in mind any agreements you have in place to protect the integrity and confidentiality of client data.

Please open a support ticket to request a github repository.  In your request, specify the name of your institution and the github usernames of your team members who will need write access to the repository.

There is no set page limit specified for reports submitted in both the regional and global rounds. Feel free to indulge in your verbosity, but remember that brevity often communicates ideas more effectively. Unnecessary content will detract from the important information located within the report and is often seen as unprofessional.

Each team is required to be accompanied by a full time employee representative from their university.  In the event an employee is not available, CPTC is willing to work with the team on a case by case basis to help identify an alternate coach, such as a mentor or employee from a local company that is formally delegated by the unviersity as the coach.  

During the competition, Coaches may be asked to participate or support some activities, such as helping to grade inject presentations, at the direction of the NationalCPTC representatives and directors. In this case, as an example, Coaches will not be allowed to score their own team.

Coaches may be asked to participate in some parts of the event and all professional courtesy will be provided to the coaches in the event they need to work on other items or are unable to participate.  In the event coaches participate in graded items, they will not be able to grade their own team.

Regional competitions, depending on their sponsorship, may be able to provide some accommodations; however, teams will generally be responsible for travel and room unless otherwise arranged.  Teams advancing to the finals event will be provided with travel assistance and lodging during the event unless otherwise notified.

Coaches do not need to sign the NDA form.  Coaches are encouraged to publicize their team’s participation in CPTC events but should not share any information about specific details of the competition until after the end of the Global Finals event in January.

Scoring for all regions is performed by volunteers from sponsors, the core team, directors, and from the industry.  Communication between team members is nearly constant throughout the competition, to ensure that team members are utilizing a consistent and uniform method during scoring, and in answering questions that arise.  Efforts are taken by the core CPTC team to ensure grading is equal amongst all teams by providing a consistent rubric, grading team, and an identical environment between each team.  

Wildcard scores are compiled to normalize teams scores across all regions.  To ensure parity across all regions, we require that individual graders must score all teams in every event in order for their scores to be considered in the wildcard selection process.  This approach may result in minor discrepancies in placement of teams between individual regional events and the overall ranking across all regions for wildcard purposes. 

Most importantly, Magic ✨?

The 1st place team at each CPTC regional event will be offered the opportunity to compete at the CPTC Global finals.  In order to have a guaranteed finals place, a regional event must:

• Compete in-person
• Have a minimum of 5 registered teams

Regionals smaller than 5 registered teams or those that do not compete in-person will only be eligible for wildcard placement.

As CPTC organizers, it’s really important for us to enable the best teams in the world to make it to Global Finals each year. To support this, we offer a wildcard scoring system. This works as follows:

• The 1st place team at each regional event is offered a sport to compete at Finals.  See the corresponding FAQ article about what regional minimums are required to be met in order to have a guaranteed place at Finals for your region.
• All remaining teams that did not place 1st at their region will be placed in a wildcard pool of teams.  Teams will be ranked according to their overall performance, and the top teams will be offered a place at Finals until all available places are filled.
• All regions are considered equal for the purposes of wildcard scoring.  A given region may have multiple teams that are offered a wildcard place, or none, depending on the overall ranking of the teams in the global scoring pool.

We advise booking a hotel near your regional host. Your Regional Host may also reach out to you with suggestions.

There are not any Global sponsors currently providing regional travel stipends, but teams are permitted and encouraged to find their own sponsors.

Your regional host will reach out to you with a schedule of events that may include regional specific activities during the competition weekend. 

All CPTC9 regional events will consist of the following major time points, which will occur simultaneously across all regional events occurring during the same weekend.  Anything outside of these major events is up to each regional host. 

• Time in the competition environment (8 hours)
• Report Submission time/deadline
• Q&A With Volunteer/Organizer Team
• Award Ceremonies

Your Regional host will reach out to you with a schedule of events specific to your region. For Finals, the Global CPTC organizers will communicate out a schedule of events.

Your regional host, Rochester Institute of Technology, Dubai will be reaching out with further details regarding the setup of the region. If you need any information before the host contacts you, we encourage you to reach out with the contact information found on the CPTC Website here: https://cp.tc/international.