Friendly first week
The first week of the competition is a friendly week, none of the first week of problems are worth any points. You can start earning points for fun and internet glory in the second week.
Earning points
Each problem has a set of tests. Once you think your code is working correctly (and you've used the run button to test it yourself!) you can submit your program to the marking system for testing.
You can run the marker as many times as you want, but be careful about points (as explained below).
You will receive points only for passing all the tests for a problem before the submission deadline for that week. No points are awarded for passing only some of the test cases.
The submission deadline each week for the Demo Competition competition is (24h time) in your time zone. After the submission deadline passes, the solutions for that week's problems will be released so we can't give out any points after that.
How many points?
Each problem is worth 10 points. There may be different numbers of problems in any particular week so the total number of points available per week may vary.
If you solve the problem (passing all the tests) in the first 5 attempts, you will receive the full 10 points for that problem.
Every 5 incorrect submissions reduces the number of points you will receive for that problem. If you pass the tests on the 6th to 10th attempt (5 to 9 incorrect submissions), you will receive 9 points. Every further 5 incorrect attempts loses another point until 5 points remain.
No matter how many incorrect submissions you make, you will still get at least 5 points for solving the problem before the deadline.