TopCoder has created Assembly Competitions as an extension of our Component Design and Development Competitions. Through these competitions, competitors will create high quality applications using completed components and TopCoder's established competitive method.
The competition will have several phases:
|| Phases: ||
Contest Posting
TopCoder posts the competition details, specification deliverables, architecture deliverables and timeframe for active contests
. Members can read through the documentation and decide in what capacity they would like to be involved - Competitor or Review Board Member.
Review Board Creation
The Competition Manager (a TopCoder employee) will select the Review Board from the pool of pre-qualified members who are members of the Application Review Board. If you would like to review Assembly Competitions please click here.
Competition
The Competition phase consists of competing individuals creating the final application utilizing the necessary TopCoder components. The creation of the application is based on the architecture and specification deliverables included in the Contest Posting phase as well as any other documentation and instructions that are included in the contest posting. The end result of Assembly Competitions is a fully functional application or subset of an application.
Each competitor will be responsible for creating their working environment unless otherwise specified in the competition details.
Once a competitor has submitted their code, a TopCoder Deployment Engineer will install and attempt to run their code on a TopCoder server.
Review
At the completion of the Submission phase, the contest will enter the Review phase. This phase will consist of testing the deployment of the application, running all test cases and reviewing the application code.
A Deployment Engineer will set up an environment for each submission and will attempt to execute all test cases. Submissions that are not deployable and/or cannot be executed will be disqualified.
Each submitter will have a scorecard set up in Online Review. Reviewers will score each submission based on a scorecard. The scorecard will ensure proper use of all components as outlined in the contest deliverables as well as ensure that all code follows TopCoder guidelines. Modifying or neglecting to use any components will be cause for immediate failure.
The Appeals and Appeals Response phases will follow the Review phase. Each submitter may appeal any reviewer statement, as long as it is factually wrong. Each Reviewer will respond to the Submitters' appeals.
Based on the final scorecard standings after all appeals have been settled, a winner will be determined. The winner will then enter Final Fixes. During this stage, all identified bugs and Review Board comments must be integrated into the application. After Final Fixes have been completed, the application will be reviewed again to verify the correctness and completeness of the fixes.
Support
The first place finisher will be awarded 75% of his/her prize at the completion of the Assembly competition (after Final Fixes). The remaining 25% of the prize will be awarded after the first place winner has successfully supported his/her work as described below.
The second place finisher will be awarded 100% of his/her prize at the completion of the Assembly competition.
After the Review phase, the winning submission will move on to the Support phase. The winner will support the application for 30 days following the Final Fixes phase, including performing all bug fixes. After the 30-day support period, any identified bugs will run through the standard TopCoder bug fixing processes which the winner may or may not choose to participate in. Any requests for enhancements will result in additional payments to the winner.
If a defect is found in a component, it will be fixed through TopCoder's standard component bug fixing process. An appropriate deadline will be set to fix the component and the winner will integrate the patched component once it has been fixed. If the component fix falls outside the scope of the 30-day support period, the winner will be paid additional money to integrate the component into the application once it has been fixed.
If the winner misses any deadlines for fixing defects, they will be lose a percentage of their remaining prize in accordance with the following schedule:
- If 3-5 bug fixes are late, then 5% is lost.
- If 5-10 bug fixes are late, then 15% is lost.
- If more than 10 bug fixes are late, then 40% is lost.
