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Canadian Computing Competition

The Canadian Computing Competition (CCC) is a fun challenge for participants with an interest in programming. Designed to be both accessible to participants with some programming experience and to challenge the keenest programmers at the secondary school level, the CCC helps participants build confidence and grow their ability to design, understand and implement algorithms.

Audience

Participants may choose to write either the Junior or Senior level of the competition. We recommend that participants and teachers follow these guidelines:

  • Junior level any participant with beginner programming skills
  • Senior level any participant with intermediate to advanced programming skills

Approximately 20 of the top participants from the Senior level of the CCC are invited to the Canadian Computing Olympiad (CCO) at the University of Waterloo.

Date

The CCC is held online in February. The CCO is invitation-only and held in May. Visit Our Contests for dates and deadlines for the current year.

Format

  • Written online by participants supervised in schools
  • 5 questions
  • 3 hours
  • Score out of 75

To learn more about the format of the competition, including the allowed programming languages and the type of questions participants can expect, visit CCC Format and Languages.

Content

The Junior competition begins with straightforward topics like basic loops and conditions and progresses to advanced material, like recursion, two-dimensional arrays and efficient or clever algorithms. The Senior competition increases in difficulty from basic algorithms to more advanced algorithms, like careful counting and some mathematical reasoning, with the final question typically involving material at the level of the International Olympiad in Informatics (IOI).

Contest Supervision

  • Contest Supervisors should arrange to have participants write the contest at school and are responsible for ensuring that participants are supervised appropriately.
  • This contest is written using the CCC Online Grader. Contest Supervisors will need to authenticate their participants in order for them to gain access.
  • Participants and supervisors are encouraged to familiarize themselves with the system prior to the official contest date.
  • All participants and teachers should familiarize themselves with the CCC Rules.
  • Results will be sent to the Contest Supervisor by email and will also be available in the Contest Supervisor Portal in the weeks after the contest date.

Visit Canadian Computing Competition Supervision for more information.

Preparation

We recommend that participants spend some time preparing for the competition they can do so with:

Results and Recognition

Canadian Computing Olympiad (CCO)

A week-long learning experience involving workshops, a contest and other extra-curricular activities, this invitation-only event is also used to determine Canada's team that will participate in the International Olympiad in Informatics (IOI), which is hosted by a different country each year.

Approximately 20 of the top CCC senior official participants from schools in Canada are invited to the CCO at the University of Waterloo each spring. The selection of CCO participants and the Canadian IOI team members is at the discretion of the CEMC Executive.

Next Steps

To learn more about our contests, follow the links below to get started:

Get in Touch

Questions? We invite you to contact us.