The California Informatics Competition is a high-school programming competition hosted by students at UC Berkeley. We create contest problems to promote the understanding of useful algorithms and encourage students to grow their problem-solving skills! To see some past problems, check out our Problem Bank.
CALICO
Our biannual programming competition is for students up to 12th grade. These contests are run during the fall and spring season, and consist of a large number of problems meant to be solved by teams. Come prepared to bring your best, and we will take care of the rest!
CALSUCO
Our CALSUCO summer contests are open to participants of all ages! Compete as an individual; these contests consist of multiple online, bite-sized rounds run during the summer months. Keep your skills fresh with these lower-stakes, casual contests!
Editor's Choice
These problems almost made the cut for our competitions--so close! These contests are released on our problem bank before CALICO competitions; no registration necessary! Same format, same rules--feel free to use these as practice material, tryouts for teams, or to test your computer setup!
12/17: Contest registration confirmations have been sent out as of right now! If you've registered but didn't receive an email, please contact us ASAP at team@calico.berkeley.edu!
11/03: The Editor's Choice Fall '21 Contest is now LIVE on our problem bank; create an account there to access it!
10/18: Registrations for CALICO Fall '21 Online are now OPEN! Registrations close on 12/16/2021 11:59PM PST.
| Date | Time (PST) | Event |
|---|---|---|
| 12/16/2021 | 11:59PM | Registration Deadline |
| 12/17/2021 | 6:00PM | Contest Page Published |
| 8:00PM | Confirmation Emails Sent | |
| 12/18/2021 | 1:00PM | Contest Begins! |
| 4:00PM | Contest Ends | |
| 4:30PM | Winners Announced! |
| Date | Contest | Registration Deadline |
|---|---|---|
| 11/13/2021 | Editor's Choice Fall '21 | No Deadline! |
| 12/18/2021 | CALICO Fall '21 Online | 12/16/2021 11:59PM PST |
| TBA | Editor's Choice Spring '22 | No Deadline! |
| TBA | CALICO Spring '22 | To Be Announced |
| TBA | CALSUCO '22 Round A | To Be Announced |
Want to be the first to know when registrations open? Sign up for our email list to get updates sent right to your inbox!
In short, anybody up to 12th grade can participate in CALICO! If you're past 12th grade, feel free to check out our problem bank or participate in CALSUCO contests during the summer! For more detailed guidelines on registration eligibility, see "Registration Eligibility" under our Contest Guide.
First things first, make sure all team members sign and submit the liability waiver on the ContestDojo platform! This must be done BEFORE the registration deadline; any team member who does not submit a signed waiver in time will not be eligible to participate in CALICO.
Once this has been done, you can expect an email from us after the registration deadline about how to access the contest site. For more information on this, see "Contest Autograder Logistics" under our Contest Guide.
In the meantime, check out our "Preparing for the Contest" checklist, also found on our Contest Guide!
If you know how to work with conditions, loops, strings, and integers, you can start solving problems! At a higher level, our problems give students a preview into concepts taught at various classes within Berkeley's CS department. Regardless of whether you're just starting out or a seasoned programmer, there will be something for you!
All you need is a computer running an approved programming language, a text editor to work with, and a stable internet connection! For a list of approved programming languages, see "Approved Languages" under our Contest Guide.
A maximum of 3 people are allowed to be on a team for CALICO. You're free to have smaller teams, but it's more fun with friends!
The following prizes will be awarded to the highest-scoring teams (1 per team):
Amazon Gift Cards will be emailed to the captains of winning teams immediately following the contest.
Check out our Contest Guide to learn about the rules, the structure of the contest, and other technical details!
If you have a question, don't hesitate to email us at team@calico.berkeley.edu! Feel free to also reach out to us on Instagram.
Stay in the loop for CALICO announcements by signing up for email notifications! Our email list will only notify you when contest registrations open, along with other important updates.
Thank you to these organizations for making our events possible! Interested in supporting CALICO? Shoot us an email at team@calico.berkeley.edu!