The ThinkQuest International Competition challenges students to solve a real-world problem by applying their critical thinking, communication, and technology skills.
The Competition challenges students to solve a real-world problem by applying their critical thinking, communication, and technology skills. Teams will define the problem they intend to solve and produce an entry that presents their solution and the process they followed to develop their solution. Participants may enroll in one or more of the following Competition events: ThinkQuest Projects, Digital Media, and Application Development.
ThinkQuest Projects Event
Participants will use ThinkQuest Projects, a hosted environment where students produce web-based learning projects, to create their entry.
Digital Media Event
Participants will use digital media tools to produce a blog/journal, website, animation, public service announcement, photo essay, video, or some combination of these items to create their entry.
Application Development Event
Participants will develop a web-based application or game using their choice of programming language and database from a select list.
Team Requirements
1. Teams must be comprised of 1-6 students and one Coach.
2. Teams may include only one student who is a former winner, including honorable mention, of a ThinkQuest International Competition. This does not include winners of ThinkQuest Local Competitions.
3. Teams may include students from a single classroom, or different classrooms, different schools, cities, states, and countries.
4. ThinkQuest Projects requires that teams with students from different schools designate at least one teacher from each school to be associated with their ThinkQuest Projects event entries. Please note that only those individuals identified as team members and the Coach on the enrollment form are eligible for prizes.
5. Teams will be disqualified if any information submitted to the Foundation intentionally misrepresents the truth.
6. Any individual who is located in or a citizen of Cuba, Sudan, Iran, North Korea, Syria, and any other sanctioned country designated by the United States Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (including but not limited to Specially Designated Nationals) and/or whose name appears on any U.S. government Denied Persons List may not participate in the Competition.
Coach Requirements
ThinkQuest Projects Event
Coaches must be an employee of an eligible educational institution* with approved and authorized ThinkQuest Projects membership as of the day of the entry submission deadline.
Coaches must be at least 21 years old, or the age of legal majority in their country/state of residence, whichever is older, on the day of the entry submission deadline.
Digital Media Event
Coaches must be an employee or student of an eligible educational institution* as of the day of the entry submission deadline.
Coaches must be at least 21 years old, or the age of legal majority in their country/state of residence, whichever is older, on the day of the entry submission deadline.
Application Development Event
Coaches must be an employee or student of an eligible educational institution* as of the day of the entry submission deadline.
Coaches must be at least 21 years old, or the age of legal majority in their country/state of residence, whichever is older, on the day of the entry submission deadline.
* An "eligible educational institution" is an accredited primary, or secondary school, college or university that is owned or operated by a government or local school board, or an accredited, nonprofit, private school that is tax-exempt under U.S. Internal Revenue Code Section 501(c)(3), or the non-U.S. equivalent of a Section 501(c)(3) school or a Foundation-approved nonprofit organization. The Foundation reserves the right to approve on a case-by-case basis individuals from a Foundation-approved nonprofit organization to participate.
Student Requirements
ThinkQuest Projects Event
Students must be members of ThinkQuest Projects.
Students must be age 19 or under on the day of the entry submission deadline.
Digital Media Event
Must be enrolled as a student at an eligible educational institution* during the Competition.
Students must be age 19 or under on the day of the entry submission deadline.
Application Development Event
Must be enrolled as a student at an eligible educational institution* during the Competition.
Students must be age 22 or under on the day of the entry submission deadline.
* An "eligible educational institution" is an accredited primary, or secondary school, college or university that is owned or operated by a government or local school board, or an accredited, nonprofit, private school that is tax-exempt under U.S. Internal Revenue Code Section 501(c)(3), or the non-U.S. equivalent of a Section 501(c)(3) school or a Foundation-approved nonprofit organization. The Foundation reserves the right to approve on a case-by-case basis individuals from a Foundation-approved nonprofit organization to participate.
Age Divisions
Teams may include students of different ages. The age of the oldest student on the team, on the day of the entry submission deadline, will determine the age division in which a team competes.
The following age divisions apply to each event:
- ThinkQuest Projects Event
* 12 and under *
* 16 and under
* 19 and under
- Digital Media Event
* 12 and under *
* 16 and under
* 19 and under
- Application Development Event
* 16 and under *
* 19 and under
* 22 and under
* There is no minimum age requirement to participate in the Competition.
Entry Requirements
We recommend that teams only include content that best presents the solution according to the Evaluation Guidelines, which are incorporated by reference. Judges should be able to review your entry within fifteen (15) minutes.
1. All entries must meet the following specifications:
- ThinkQuest Projects Event
* A ThinkQuest Project that includes up to 25 pages with up to 10 content items on each page; and
* A completed entry submission form including the Critical Thinking Summary which is used to present the process that the team followed to develop the proposed solution to their defined problem.
- Digital Media Event
* A blog/journal, website, animation, public service announcement, photo essay, video, or some combination of these items uploaded to a non-ThinkQuest server;
* Entries must function using a PC and Mac and when viewed using IE 7+ and Firefox 3+; and
* A completed entry submission form including the Critical Thinking Summary which is used to present the process that the team followed to develop the proposed solution to their defined problem.
- Application Development Event
* A web-based application or game;
* Entries must function using a PC and Mac and when viewed using IE 7+ and Firefox 3+;
* A completed entry submission form including the Critical Thinking Summary which is used to present the process that the team followed to develop the proposed solution to their defined problem;
* Entries must be uploaded to and function correctly in the Foundation-hosted environment designed specifically for entries in the Application Development event; and
* Teams are required to select one of the following options to develop their entry:
Entries that involve the use of any other programming languages or databases, such as C++ or Visual Basic, are not acceptable.
Development environment setup instructions and free software resources will be available by September 30, 2010. TO HELP ENSURE THAT EACH ENTRY FUNCTIONS PROPERLY IN THE FOUNDATION-HOSTED ENVIRONMENT, THE FOUNDATION RECOMMENDS THAT TEAMS SET UP THEIR ENTRY DEVELOPMENT ENVIRONMENTS AFTER THESE RESOURCES ARE MADE AVAILABLE. See “Software Options for the Application Development Event”, which is available in the How to Compete in the Application Development Event section of the Help files and incorporated by reference.
THE FOUNDATION-HOSTED ENVIRONMENT IS SCHEDULED TO BE AVAILABLE IN MARCH 2011. APPLICATION DEVELOPMENT EVENT TEAMS CANNOT SUBMIT THEIR ENTRIES UNTIL THE FOUNDATION-HOSTED ENVIRONMENT IS AVAILABLE. COACHES WILL RECEIVE SPECIFIC INSTRUCTIONS ON UPLOADING ENTRIES TO THE FOUNDATION-HOSTED ENVIRONMENT.
2. Any team using a third party provider to develop and/or host its entry must ensure that the third party provider meets the following requirements:
* must be reputable and reliable;
* provider’s content must be appropriate for minors;
* must not claim any ownership of Competition entry content or restrict the use of the entry content by the Foundation; and
* must allow unrestricted linking to and from www.thinkquest.org.
Note: Application Development event teams are required to use the Foundation-hosted environment in submitting their entry.
3. All entries must include all necessary citations and permissions.
* Citations must reflect all resources and tools used to produce the entry.
* Permissions must reflect all necessary written permission to use content that was not originally created by the team.
4. Entries cannot contain plagiarized content. Plagiarism is defined as follows:
* any copying of another person's work that results in the entry not being substantially the original work of the team, regardless of whether the copied work is cited;
* copying a significant amount of words or ideas from someone else without giving credit;
* if quoting content from a source, failing to put that quote within quotation marks; and
* any other behavior that the Foundation determines to be plagiarism.
5. Entries may not contain objectionable material in any medium or format. This includes content that:
* is inappropriate, offensive, libelous, defamatory, pornographic, sexually explicit, or unlawful;
* a reasonable person could consider harassing, abusive, threatening, harmful, vulgar, profane, obscene, excessively violent or racially, ethnically or otherwise objectionable;
* violates or infringes upon any person's rights;
* promotes software or services that deliver unsolicited email; and/or
* disrupts or interferes with the Competition or services including use of viruses, worms, corrupt files, Trojan horses, etc.
6. By submitting an entry, each participant represents that the entry does not infringe upon or violate anyone’s copyright or other proprietary or privacy rights and is not subject to any restriction under any law.
7. Entries may not contain commercial content. Commercial content includes content that promotes the sale of a product or service directly via the entry or via hyperlinks to external sites, logos, brand names, advertising-related slogans, etc.
8. Entries and entry forms may not contain student last names, student or Coach email addresses, or any type of personal contact information, or other personally identifiable information of participants.
9. All teams that complete the "Your Roadmap to Success" tutorial and survey will be eligible to receive additional points. All students on a team must complete the tutorial and submit a completed survey in order for a team to be eligible to receive additional points.
10. All entries, entry forms and other communications submitted to the Foundation must be submitted in English.
Calendar
Competition Opens: August 25, 2010
Entry Submission Deadline: April 27, 2011
Winners Announcement: Scheduled for June 22, 2011
For more information: http://www.thinkquest.org/
