Frequently Asked Questions

For elementary student teams, a team can be a group of 1-5 classroom or homeschool students, with the teacher as the Team Leader.  4-H club or scouting group leaders, for example, can form teams of 1-5 elementary students, the club leader would be the Team Leader as long as they are 21 years old. For middle school youth and high school youth teams, a team can be a group of 1-4 classroom or homeschool students, with the teacher as the Team Leader. 4-H club or scouting group leaders, for example, can form teams of 1-5 students, the club leader would be the Team Leader as long as they are 21 years old.  A team cannot consist of just siblings and their parent. Any team that is not led by a teacher must have at least two student members who do not live in the same household. For educators, teams must have at least 1, but not more than 3 educators. See Section IV of the Official Rules.

Yes! We encourage this!

Maybe. Teams with only one student must have a teacher, from the same school as the student, as the Team Leader. See Section IV of the Official Rules.

No, middle school youth teams may only consist of students in grades 6-8 and high school teams may only consist of students in grades 9-12. See Section IV of the Official Rules.

No. Each student may only be on one team.

In order for a student to switch teams, the Team Leader must submit a new registration, and consent forms, for the newly formed teams. If a student is also switching Team Leaders, both Team Leaders must submit new registrations for the two newly formed teams. Otherwise, both teams will be ineligible because the same student is on two different teams. The Team Leader of the original team should delete their original team in the registration system.

Yes! Please ensure that each student is only on one team and that teams do not mix elementary, middle school, and high school youth. At this time, Team Leaders are limited to 20 teams. However, K-12 teachers serving at Team Leaders can email the Presidential SI Challenge team (SI.Challenge@doe.gov) to discuss options for additional teams.

Each student must be a U.S. citizen, U.S. national (American Samoa), or lawful permanent resident (LPR) AND attend school in one of the 50 states, a U.S. Department of War Education Activity school, U.S. Tribally Controlled School, Bureau of Indian Education school, or the U.S. Jurisdictions of the District of Columbia, the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, American Samoa, Guam, the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, or the U.S. Virgin Islands. Please note: travel to the National Championships will only be provided within the United States and its districts and territories. All other eligible students would have to arrange and pay for their travel to the United States.

Only one adult may be the Team Leader for all teams. No other adults will be recognized by the Challenge. However, the team may work with local mentors, with permission from the students’ parents or legal guardians.

The consent forms for student participants must be signed by the student's parent or legal guardian.

Not at all! However, educators must be full-time K-12 public, charter, private, or official homeschool teachers. See Section IV of the Official Rules.

No, only current, full-time K-12 classroom educators at public, charter, private, and homeschools may form educator teams. See Section IV of the Official Rules. Faculty are welcome to participate as mentors or Team Leaders of community groups.

Elementary groups can be any size from 1 to many students, ideally no more than 30 students.

The forms can be found on the Eligibility page.

Yes. Please submit two registrations – one on the educator category and one in the youth category.

No, grade categories cannot be combined. Middle school youth teams may only consist of students in grades 6-8 and high school teams may only consist of students in grades 9-12.

Yes, parents can serve as Team Leaders for approved community groups. There must be at least two students on the team and not all students can live in the same household. In addition, all team members must be active team members.

The registration deadline is December 18, 2026. All registrations submitted after December 18, 2026, at 5:00 pm Eastern/2:00pm Pacific time will not be approved. The system will allow a team to register, but it will NOT allow a team to submit a project.

No. All teams are either school-based or community clubs. Members of community clubs must live within the same or a neighboring county.

The Team Leader for each team will submit the project through the registration system. You may edit the submission or delete the submission and start over until the deadline passes.

If your PDF submission includes links to a video on the cloud, you may edit the video and keep the same access link at any point until the submission deadline. If your changes require that you update the access link, you will need to edit your pdf and replace it within the registration system.

The students and educators who create the projects for the Challenge will maintain the intellectual property rights of the work for their project submissions. The participants grant to the U.S. Government a non-exclusive license to publish, share, display, or distribute the submitted projects to promote the Challenge, showcase innovation, or educate the public. See Section XV of the Official Rules.

No. Participants can use any resource for their projects. There are many free resources, but any costs for completing the project will be the responsibility of the team.

No. Participants are free to design their submission however they would like, AS LONG AS the requirements in the rules are fulfilled. We suggest that teams review the Guidebook, especially pages 17-23, when preparing their PDFs.

Not necessarily. It is possible to complete the challenge entirely digitally. However, you can have physical pieces for your project if you would like. You will submit the physical items to the challenge as part of your videos.

Upon registering, you don’t choose a track. The Team Leader of your team will indicate the track when your project is submitted.

Yes, it is possible to switch tracks after submitting to one track. The track for your project will be selected when the Team Leader submits it in the online system. If you decide to change the track you wish to compete in, the Team Leader will need to update the selections in the online system prior to the project submission deadline.

There is no requirement that the code be shared, but if seeing the code will strengthen your project, you can provide a link to your code in the PDF document.

You are welcome to use any SI tool that you’d like!

It depends on how you plan to showcase your tool to the judges. If you record a video of your tool to include in your PDF, it could be hosted locally and not available to the public. If you want the judges to be able to use your tool, you will need to have it available to them in a format where they can access it.

The judges will be SI experts and educators from across the country. Many work for National Laboratories, technology companies, and colleges. If you are interested in becoming a judge, complete this form.

Students should be developing ideas, learning new skills, and completing the work required for the project. The Team Leader should help students to develop skills through direct instruction, providing online resources, or connecting them to mentors. Team Leaders should also be mindful about age-restrictions of SI Tools and monitor students’ use of SI tools to ensure student privacy and safety.

Things that may disqualify a team from this Challenge include but are not limited to: 1) not meeting eligibility requirements; 2) academic dishonesty such as not disclosing the use of an SI tool; and 3) editing your video, poster, or other project components after the submission deadline. Challenge management reserves the right to disqualify a team for other reasons not explicitly listed if deemed necessary to ensure fairness, integrity, or compliance with the Challenge rules and guidelines.

At this time, there are no tools that are prohibited.