If you have little to absolutely no programming experience, this "crash course" will be helpful. This is a course of the most basic terms/syntax and functions of Python (since our IDE, or Python Editor, which will be used for some problems is optimized for Python). Note that once you have learned the basics of programming you will find most languages are quite similar except for the unique syntax used. Most basic ideas (such as loops and creating functions and conditional statements), however, are the same across languages.
What can you do in Python? Lots of things! What may be useful for this competition is learning everything you need to write algorithms to solve problems and basic tools such as printing.
Some unique properties of Python is that it uses indentation instead of brackets (usually tabs or spaces, but don't mix the two), you don't have to declare variable types, and using semicolons are optional.