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Rules

General Provisions

The rules noted herein are subject to change and may, from time to time, be updated by the Build the Moon Challenge (BTMC) management. All updates shall be announced publicly on the BTMC webpage and through the BTMC email newsletter. It is the responsibility of participants to ensure their understanding of and compliance with the BTMC rules. Questions about the rules should be sent to: btmc@competitionsciences.org. The Challenge management shall not provide responses to questions that are specific to the team’s project. Failure to adhere to the rules noted herein shall be cause for disqualification from the Challenge. Determination of disqualification shall be at the sole discretion of the Challenge management. Any decision of disqualification is final.

Eligibility

  1. Age: students must be in middle school or high school during the academic year of their participation.
  2. Country: students may be from any country.
  3. Educational Organizations: participants may be in any type of schooling: formal, informal, home-schooled, etc.
  4. Student Team Limitation: students may be on no more than one team per competition cohort.
  5. Team Members: teams may include up to 10 students.
  6. Adult Coach: each team must have an adult “coach” noted on the submission and team registration.
  7. Limitations on the number of teams per coach: there are no limitations on the number of teams a coach may support.
  8. Limitations on the number of teams per organization: organizations may submit as many teams as they like so long as the teams adhere to all rules and regulations herein. There is no limitation on the number of teams in the Challenge from any organization.
  9. Past Participant Limitations: Students who have participated in previous seasons of the BTMC may participate again under the following stipulations:
    1. Participation in each BTMC season requires a new team registration and the purchase of a new competition kit.
    2. Teams may reuse the same concrete recipe from a previous season provided they create a new project submission that includes:
      1. A newly documented design process.
      2. New photographs documenting the current season’s construction and testing process.
      3. New demonstrations conducted during the current competition season.
      4. A newly designed lunar habitat.
    3. All submission materials must represent work completed for the current competition season.
  10. Students must complete all required submissions for Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3 of the BTMC project to be eligible for awards as described in the Project Guide.

Registrations

  1. User registration: students who are 13 years old or older may have accounts on the registration platform; however, they are not required to do so. Students who are under 13 years old may not have accounts on the system.
  2. Coach Registration: each team shall have an adult Team Coach and all coaches shall register as users on the Institute of Competition Sciences (ICS) online platform. Coaches must have a user account in order to officially register a team for the BTMC.
  3. Team Registration: to compete for the Challenge, a team must be registered on the ICS platform. Team registration must be completed by the adult team Coach for middle school teams. The user that creates the team shall become the Team Administrator with capabilities to add or remove other team members.
  4. Team Members: all students participating on a team shall be added as Team Members by the Team Administrator. Only official Team Members noted in the system will be recognized on award materials if the team receives an award. 
  5. Team Coach: all participating teams must have a team coach registered as a user on the ICS platform.
  6. Changing Team Members: a team may add or remove a team member at any time prior to the submission deadline without notification to the Challenge staff. The official Team Roster shall be the members listed on the Team’s ICS dashboard at the time of the submission.

Submissions

  1. All submissions must be the work of the student team members.
  2. A team’s coach or other adult mentors may provide guidance to the team; however, they may not make excessive contributions to the project submissions. The coach may provide logistical support in recording videos, capturing data, and completing activities, but the structure, content, and information included in the submission must be the work of the students.
  3. Submissions may not plagiarize material, all facts, figures, charts, or other information used must be cited.
  4. All submission materials shall be submitted electronically through the Institute of Competition Sciences’ (ICS) online platform.
  5. Submissions must be uploaded by the submission deadline noted on the Challenge website. No late submissions will be allowed.
  6. Required submission materials are noted in the Challenge Program Guide. available on the Team Dashboard.

Judging

  1. Submission judging is conducted by a committee of Challenge advisors following a scoring rubric.
  2. The criteria included in the scoring rubric shall be provided to teams on the Challenge webpage and in their program materials on the ICS Team Dashboard.
  3. Awards shall be conferred upon teams by the judging committee in both a quantitative and qualitative review.
  4. Evaluation of the Judging Committee is final.

Awards

The Challenge will bestow Overall Best in Show awards for each season of the program. To be eligible for an award, a team must have submitted all material for all activities on the team portal. Each activity is described in detail in the Challenge Program Guide found on the team portal.

Students must complete all required submissions for Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3 of the BTMC project to be eligible for awards as described in the Project Guide.

Code of Conduct

All Challenge participants are held to high personal ethical standards. We expect all participants to treat others with respect and courtesy. Participants should be considerate of the diverse backgrounds and perspectives of others. The decisions you make and actions you conduct during your participation in the Challenge should be honest and truthful to the best of your ability and should refrain from disparaging other participants in any way. We trust that you will not conduct yourself in a matter that tampers with the outcomes, fabricates submissions, or plagiarizes content. If at any point you are unsure about the ethical conduct of your team, please reach out to the Challenge management for clarification. Failure to abide by the Challenge Code of Conduct may result in the team’s disqualification from the Challenge. All Challenge participants shall adhere to the following codes of conduct:

Sportsmanship: participants shall not make disparaging remarks about other participants of the Challenge or their work. Participants are expected to conduct themselves according to the following rules of good sportsmanship:

  • Treat other participants, judges, mentors, staff, and volunteers with respect, regardless of race, sex, creed, ability or any other factor.
  • Encourage good sportsmanship in all participants and assist in maintaining a respectful environment for all.
  • Provide positive support and encouragement to team members, and other teams alike.
  • Refrain from making offensive or disparaging remarks about another team’s project or participants.
  • Refrain from making offensive or disparaging remarks about individuals supporting the Challenge including but not limited to: personnel, staff, mentors, judges, and volunteers. Recognize that all supporters of the Challenge are conducting themselves so as to organize and manage the best academic challenge possible. If you have a concern with the manner in which the Challenge  the petition process mentioned below to bring up a specific concern.
  • Be courteous to opposing teams, judges, mentors, staff, and volunteers at all times.
  • Recognize that judges are donating their time and are doing their best to make unbiased, fair and timely decisions.
  • Accept the decisions of judges as final, and with good grace. If you have a specific concern with how the judging process was conducted you may bring it up with the Challenge staff by contacting spacefood@competitionsciences.org.

Plagiarism: participants shall not plagiarize materials of any kind in their work for the Challenge. Plagiarism includes, but is not limited to, the use of another’s words or ideas as if they are one’s own. Plagiarism and any kind of academic cheating are grounds for dismissal from the Challenge. The Institute of Competition Sciences reserves the right to use Plagiarism Detection Technologies to check for plagiarized content in the team Project Report.

Use of Prior Work: A participant may use prior research or other written work that was authored by them before the start of the Challenge. Project slides and recorded video presentations submitted for the Challenge have to meet the requirements of the rubric and be substantially different from any previous work submitted to the competition. The Submission Items must also be the sole authorship of the student team. If the prior work was published, it should be properly cited in the Submission Items.

Use of Artificial Intelligence: Artificial Intelligence (AI) is a tool that can be used in the development of a project but cannot be used in writing the team’s submission items. The use of AI, including ChatGPT, to generate or modify project content is strictly prohibited. Students should not represent any work done by an AI as their own. The Institute of Competition Sciences reserves the right to use AI Detection Technologies to check for AI-generated content in the team’s submission items. If the Institute of Competition Sciences discover at any time, during or after the challenge, that an entry contains material generated by Artificial Intelligence, the student and teacher who submitted the entry may be immediately disqualified and may be obligated to forfeit any award recognition and any and all prizes that may have been provided to them in connection with their entries.