Feel free to book a USACO intro meeting, or you can check out some problems first! I recommend reading the January 2024 Bronze Contest (scroll down to Bronze) to get an idea of the problem style and topics. Each tier introduces new topics, but the problem solving is challenging at every tier.

While the problem style is similar to that of the BW HSPC, you’ll notice that each problem has a “Scoring” section that describes various kinds of additional input bounds designed to make the different algorithms feasible to get partial credit. In Cannonball, full credit bound is N <= 100,000, but solutions for N <= 1,000 or even N <= 100 also get some points. An O(N^4) algorithm would probably work for N <= 100 but not the larger categories.

Please use the scheduler to book an online intro with me (and your parent/guardian). Or, visit the Contact page to send any questions directly and I’ll get back to you when I can.