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Canadian Computing Competition

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

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

Audience 

Students may choose to write either the junior or senior level of the competition. 

  • Junior level — any student with elementary programming skills 
  • Senior level — any student with intermediate to advanced programming skills 

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 by individuals online 
  • 5 questions 
  • Some problems are divided into subtasks with partial marks awarded to each subtask 
  • 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 students 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. 

Contest Supervision 

  • Teachers can arrange to have students write the contest in the lab or classroom or remotely and are responsible for ensuring that students are supervised appropriately. 
  • This contest is written using the CCC Online Grader. Contest Supervisors will need to authenticate their students in order for them to gain access.  
  • Students and supervisors are encouraged to familiarize themselves with the system prior to the official contest date. 
  • All students 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 students 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 participation in the International Olympiad in Informatics (IOI), which is hosted by a different country each year.

Approximately 20 of the top CCC senior participants classified as Canadian School Official are invited to the CCO at the University of Waterloo each spring. 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.