This has already been shared on the Mumbai groups but I am posting it here too.
This year, we are gonna have the Sudoku Mahabharat rounds offline as well, in Mumbai, in an official capacity. I will be supervising this and we will 3 hours every Sunday of the SM weekends where participants can come to the venue and take the test.
Few Questions:
1. During online, submissions are checked immediately for correctness. How this is going to work in offline mode?
2. There is some time which takes to submit the answer keys. How much time will be given to someone solving offline?
These two points are exactly why it evens out. On the one hand they do not have the cushion of Instant Grading, nor do they have the comfort of solving at their own homes. On the other hand, they don't have to enter answer keys, and they can get a proper competition experience by solving Sudokus fully to gain credit in a competitive environment.
There are small pros and cons for solving on interface vs print+solve too which we have all accepted. Just consider this as option 3 with its own pros and cons. Plus the main priority of the SM rounds is to encourage more beginners to participate.
Round 1 of Offline SM got off to a promising start. We had 8 participants and they all enjoyed the experience and are thankful for the option. I encourage more people in Mumbai to join in for the remaining rounds.