I feel very timid as I approach the Monks with my question. I am a recent convert to Perl and come with no prior religious background (computer science et. al) with which to help me. It is my hope to glean from you sages.

Almost a year ago I was asked (as part of my MFA assistantship) to figure out how to automatically create adjudication paneling for a high school drama competition. I was asked because out of my entire Graduate class, I was the only one who had any background in computers. I came up with a simple solution a year ago that does not work 100% of the time (not even 20%, probably). Now that the event is coming up again, I've been asked to see if I can "make it work."

Paneling in Brief:

Each year a set number of schools register for the competition. Each school can register participants into two types of competitions: monologues or duos/trios. There are three rounds wherein participants compete.

  1. No individual can compete against his own school.
  2. Each participant must compete each round.
  3. No participant can compete against the same competitor more than once.
  4. There should not be more than 6 competitors in each adjudicated panel.

These rules seem simple enough, but I have been banging my head trying to solve it. I even created a simple chart to help me "visualize" what I am trying to do:

Understanding Paneling Image

My simple CGI program is available here:

Panel Generation Program
The code can be taken here:
Panel Generation Code

Although I am just a graduate student working as a slave for a non-profit organization, I am more than willing to buy tickets to whomever can help me. I'm not necessarily looking for someone to rewrite a program for me (unless it is painfully obvious and simple), but I would love tips, suggestions, and pointers.

Coincidentally, I've presented this problem to the university math and computer science majors here at Southern Utah University and the only help I've received is learning about factorials.

Sincerely submitted,
~derek

In reply to Perl for Adjudication by dejoha

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