Introduction

Before getting into the nitty gritty of what how to start developing problems, there are a couple of core ideas that I want to make sure people are thinking about as they develop problems.

1. This is a competition for Middle/High Schoolers, while there is certainly space at the top to differentiate the best in the country/world, the focus of this really should be learning, and bringing someone with little/no CTF experience into this CTF to learn and get excited about the area.
2. Focus on creating a problem that is understandable how to approach, even if it ends up being challenging we want to lead people in a direction to research, not have them clueless, nothing else is more disheartening than not knowing where to start.
3. If we end up developing enough problems we might not use all of them, and that doesn’t mean they are bad, just that it didn’t fill the slot for this competition, it’s still possible to be used in the future.

Legal Note: If you are developing problems it means that you are willing to sign saying that PicoCTF/CMU can host your problems, please go check it out in Home.