MiniZinc Challenge 2017

The Challenge

The aim of the challenge is to start to compare various constraint solving technology on the same problems sets. The focus is on finite domain propagation solvers. An auxiliary aim is to build up a library of interesting problem models, which can be used to compare solvers and solving technologies.

Entrants to the challenge provide a FlatZinc or MiniZinc solver and global constraint definitions specialized for their solver. Each solver is run on 100 MiniZinc model instances. For FlatZinc solvers, we run the translator mzn2fzn on the MiniZinc model and instance using the provided global constraint definitions to create a FlatZinc file. The FlatZinc file is input to the provided FlatZinc solver. For MiniZinc solvers, the MiniZinc model and instance are input to the provided solver. Points are awarded for solving problems, speed of solution, and goodness of solutions (for optimization problems).

Announcements

  • 2017-08-30 Announcement of the results available here.
  • 2017-06-02 Official Call for Participation for the MiniZinc Challenge has been made.
  • 2017-06-02 MiniZinc problem submission deadline was extended till 10 June 2017
  • 2017-03-06 Initial Call for MiniZinc Problems has been made.

Dates

  • Registration opens: Mon, 1 May 2017.
  • Problem submission deadline: Sun, 21 May 2017Sat, 10 June 2017.
  • Initial submission round begins: Sat, 1 July 2017.
  • Initial submission round ends: Sat, 15 July 2017.
  • Final submissions: Sat, 29 July 2017.
  • Announcement of results at CP2017: Room 204, 17:40pm, Wed, 30 August (Melbourne, Australia).

Registration

Entrants must register their intention to enter the contest before the first submission round.
The first submission round is an opportunity for us to provide feedback concerning your entry; it does not count towards the final result.
Feel free to register and later withdraw.

To register send an email with the following subject line 

    [MZNC17] registration

to 

    mzn-challenge 'at' minizinc.org

In the body of the email please include an email address at which we can contact you and the name of your solver.

Submission

We will provide submission details via email to the address provided above.

Problem Submission

We strongly encourage all entrants to submit one or two MiniZinc models satisfying the contest requirements, together with instances for these models. They can be submitted as tarballs to: 

    mzn-challenge 'at' minizinc.org

The sooner they are submitted the better, the deadline is Sun, 22 May 2017. The call for problem submission is available here. Please feel free to distribute it.

Rules

The rules for the MiniZinc Challenge 2017 are available here.
If we need to make changes to the rules, all registered entrants will be informed by email.

Judges

The judges will be responsible for selecting the tested instances, vetting the results, and ruling on any questions that arise during the competition.

  • Jimmy H.M. Lee. Chinese University of Hong Kong.
  • Barry O'Sullivan, Cork Constraint Computation Center.
  • Roland Yap, National University of Singapore.

Feedback

This is the tenth time this challenge is run, and there are many possibilities for comparing CP solvers. The rules try to make a sensible set of choices for the comparison. We would welcome any comments or suggestions regarding the running of this challenge.

We can be contacted with the subject starting with [MZNC17] at: 

    mzn-challenge 'at' minizinc.org

MiniZinc forums

The MiniZinc forum is for beginners, users, and developers to discuss MiniZinc. If you would like to join then sign up for the MiniZinc forums.

Links

The MiniZinc page includes a list of resources related to MiniZinc and FlatZinc.

The MiniZinc 2.0 Distribution includes a MiniZinc-to-FlatZinc converter and a large suite of MiniZinc examples and benchmarks.

The MiniZinc Challenge 2016 webpage, include the results from the previous year.

The MiniZinc Challenges 2008-2016 webpage, include the results from each MiniZinc Challenge.