--- title: Rounds and timeline description: How the online preliminary and on-campus final rounds are organized. --- import WorkshopRecordingLink from '../../../../components/workshops/WorkshopRecordingLink.astro'; [CTF awareness session: CryptX 2.0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kO-dMGd8CAM) ## Preliminary round: online The first stage is an overnight online qualifier described as a six-hour event, scheduled from 8:00 PM to 2:00 AM on the first weekend. Teams work through tracks such as web exploitation, reverse engineering, digital forensics, and open-source intelligence (OSINT). The top 15 teams on the leaderboard advance to the final. [The session outlines the two-stage structure](https://youtu.be/kO-dMGd8CAM?t=1401), [the qualifier schedule](https://youtu.be/kO-dMGd8CAM?t=1407), [the challenge tracks](https://youtu.be/kO-dMGd8CAM?t=1927), and [the qualifying cutoff](https://youtu.be/kO-dMGd8CAM?t=1631). ## Final round: on campus The final is planned for the university campus a week after the qualifier, from 9:00 AM to 4:00 PM. The speaker describes it as an eight-hour physical event. It is run through an external competition platform and adds advanced tracks, including full pwn, cryptography, steganography, and blockchain. Challenge difficulty can scale based on how quickly teams solve the active tasks. [The final's schedule](https://youtu.be/kO-dMGd8CAM?t=1090), [the external platform and advanced tracks](https://youtu.be/kO-dMGd8CAM?t=581), and [adaptive difficulty](https://youtu.be/kO-dMGd8CAM?t=1112) are discussed in the recording. [Continue to platform and challenge flow](/docs/si/workshops/ctf-awareness/platform-and-challenge-flow)