Organising and running Challenges

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The basic rules

The rules and suggestions below apply to all Challenges, whether run as class or regional events.

1 The Teams: A team for a single Challenge should have no more than four and no less than three people. For a whole-school or regional BP Challenge which will have a programme of several Challenges, then a group of up to ten people can be entered. The teams of three or four members for each Challenge are from the group of ten and may appear more than once in the task teams.

The gender ratio should be representative of the school; for co-ed schools the team gender ratios should be 1:1 or 1:2 in the teams of 3–4. All ten members of the class or school team should be involved in at least one of the Challenges.

2 The programme: A class-based programme would probably have only one Challenge, but at a regional or school-based BP Challenge there should be several Challenges used in various ways, for example:

(a) A known and practised Challenge: the Challenge is known before the event so that teams are able to develop their solution with the materials specified (and provided at the event), and have time to practise making and using their solution. However, they may bring their plan to help them make and demonstrate their solution at the event under the specified conditions.

(b) Bringing a ready-made solution: The Challenge allows a solution to be built and brought to the event to perform. It will be checked before the competition to ensure that it complies with the conditions of that Challenge; if it does not it would be excluded. It is important in this instance that the condition "while the team operating the device at the event may have received advice and assistance, they must have designed and built it themselves" is clearly stated.

(c) Mystery Challenge: The Challenge is not known until about 20–50 minutes (depending on the degree of difficulty) before teams begin building their solutions. Mystery Challenges should be chosen which require generic skills and not specialist knowledge (for example, you would not select a 'flight' Challenge unless you are sure that all participants had the requisite level of knowledge). A 'mystery' Challenge could be announced during a previous event, so while one team of 3–4 may be competing, another team of 3–4 could begin working on solutionsessential if it is difficult.

In addition, you may wish to include other elements in the Challenge event:

(d) A presentation, where teams are required to give an illustrated presentation (about two minutes) of the development of their solution, with all members of a team required to take some part in the presentation. So that all the audience can see the illustrations they are probably best as OHP transparencies. Best suited to school-level Challenges.

(e) A quiz, with a wide range of questions, such as current issues in science and technology, recognition of photographs of parts of natural and human objects (magnified views especially), suggesting solutions to problems (e.g. the best suggestions on recycling common disposable objects as useful items), solutions to problems and/or trends in societal aspects of science and technology, recognition of common plants, etc.

3 The competition: The general rule is that teams are allowed only one attempt to operate their 'solution', but where the operation takes little time a second attempt could be allowed provided it can be started within one minute of the end of the previous attempt. The time allowed for an attempt may also be limited and will be stated in the conditions of a Challenge.

4 Awards: Organisers may use any system they like! Experience suggests that the most effective method is to award points for each of the top ten places (10 points for first, 9 for second, down to one point for tenth and no points for teams below the 'top ten' ranking). This works well for whole-school or regional events, classroom events are obviously at the discretion of the teacher.

The logistics of organising Challenges

Space

Unless otherwise stated, most Challenges need a floor space about 2m square. Challenges requiring the building of a tower need at least a 3.5m high space and those launching objects into the air usually need at least a 5m ceiling height (school halls are usually adequate).

All teams need their space clearly marked; use tape to mark out the team spaces on the floor of the hall (BP will supply the tape). Some Challenges can be built and used outside (see pages 4.40–4.42).

Materials

The easiest way to distribute materials is in a plastic shopping bag, which can also be included in the list of materials for many Challenges, and for some it is essential (e.g. 'Ventilator').

When running a whole-school or regional event, give each group a number. Likewise, number the spaces marked on the floor and also number any gear that they will use that you want returned. Then match the team number with the space and gear number. For example, number the snips and give them to the group matching the number. When you check the snips back in at the end of the event it is easy to identify the group which has not returned them; snips are expensive items likely to be lost when the Challenges are cleaned up.

One successful method at a regional event is to give the snips to the group with their (numbered) bag of materials for the first event and then tell the groups to retain their snips for subsequent events. It is a powerful incentive for groups to look after their snips! Be careful if using scissorssome of them have sharp points which are not sufficiently safe in a crowded hall.

For regional Challenges, the measured pieces of string are best wrapped on a piece of card, as shown, because it is easy and quick to undo from the card and doesn't become tangled. In a classroom, it is a chance for some students to practise their measuring skills by measuring pieces of string and cutting and hanging them from convenient places in the classroom.

Sticky tape is often specified as 10m rolls because for Challenges at regional events whole small rolls are easier to distribute than short lengths. For many Challenges (usually those more suited to classroom use) that amount is not needed. To distribute shorter lengths of tape, measure out the tape in manageable lengths (e.g. 0.5m long) and hang them by one end at convenient places in the room (e.g. from the edge of a desk).

Balloons must be made of rubber. Check their elasticity as 'easy-blow' varieties don't work.

The quantity of materials, such as the number of sheets of newspaper controls the size of the items built, so you can change the scale and the design parameters by reducing or increasing the sheets of paper (and of other materials, but as this may also change the range of solutions possible it needs to be done with caresee the 'Variants' notes for each Challenge). Adding materials progressively during cycles of design development can encourage the acquisition of design concepts.

Most Challenges use scoring cards. These are included with the Challenges in the Library section (although a few have no score cards). Slightly larger versions of scoring cards to copy on to coloured card for regional Challenges will be included in The BP Challenge Organisers' Handbook.

Additional equipment not listed in the Challenge description (such as that required for judging) is listed for each Challenge in the 'Organisers' sections of the 'Notes on Challenges'.

Health and safety

Challenges are safe activities, although some aspects do require care, for example:

• scissors or snips with round pointed blades are preferable to those with sharp points because of the risk of people being bumped when working in groups
• in a balloon-powered Challenge ensure only one student handles and blows up the balloon to avoid saliva exchangeyou may need to issue a general caution about it
• rubber bands could break and flick into an eye, but as those Challenges are usually operated at arm's length a general caution to keep faces away is usually sufficient; items propelled by rubber bands usually have no sharp points and are light in weight so injury is very unlikely
• floor condition: if the event involves competitors running around a course ensure that the floor is not slippery and is clean and dry and that unnecessary items of furniture have been removed; Challenges involving water and movement are best run outside.
• ensure sufficient supervision is available.

Marshals and Judges

Marshals are required to supervise teams. At a regional event each participating school should provide two marshals:

• One marshal per school team of (up to ten) students to remain with them and be responsible for ensuring that their team arrives on the floor at the correct space and time, that they retain their gear, etc. Another of their functions is to act as safety officers. However, do remind these marshals that they must not help their teams!

• The other marshal will make up one of the teams of marshals which:

  Supervise the teams on the floor, to ensure there is no interference (accidental or otherwise) by adjacent teams, to take the scoring cards to the result processing team, to place the bags of materials on each numbered section of the floor, to supervise the clean up after each event and to ensure that there are no hazards or unsafe situations.

  Judge the events: judges are best in teams of two and a ratio of one judging team per five competing teams usually ensures that the judging doesn't take too long.

  Process the results: some of the people in this team are the judges for each event, others collect the completed score cards from these judges and process the results. It is best if this team has a computer with a database already set up to enter the score for each team (to add the scores and sort them into rank order). A printer to print the results on to transparencies for projection to keep teams informed of their progress encourages the competitive tension.

Marshals can be teachers, parents or senior secondary school students. Some Challenges require specialist judges (e.g. 'The Emperor's clothes'), and for other Challenges judges with specialist knowledge and who could comment (briefly!) on the designs would be worth including in the judging team.

Judging equipment

For most Challenges the basic judging set is:

• Stop-watches
• Tape-measures
• Poles for measuring towers and for 'goal-posts' for projectile Challenges (3m lengths 20mm PVC pipe are ideal see the diagram on page 5.33).

Flexibility of judging

Because Challenges are used by a wide age range there needs to be flexibility of judging. It may be necessary to adjust some of the criteria. For example, if it seems that students are finding a mass too large to lift then reduce it, or adjust the height, or change the time allowed. When running a regional event, the novelty and pressure of working in a large competition may cause teams to take more time, so it is best to observe the groups and extend the time if necessary so that at least 90% of groups will finish. One of the key goals is to have fun, so some elements of Challenges can be adjusted to ensure satisfaction and enjoyment while retaining fairness.

Challenges in your school

Challenges can involve the whole school

Although great fun within your class, a BP Challenge between classes provides more incentive to produce even better results. Choose your class teams by running the Challenges as part of your class work. Try a range of tasks, from those which will be the inter-class tasks as well as tasks previously unknown to your class. This will help ensure you have a creative, confident and competent team. Encourage your team to develop their designs further.

If an area final is being arranged, then encourage other classes, parents and friends to come along to the final to support the team representing the school. As one way of developing better parent-school relationships encourage a parent team to enter.

Try a 'problem-solving day'

A 'problem solving day' when all classes would be involved in problem solving activities for a day is useful and would enable a very wide range of problems to be set. For example, a menu of problems could be given about two weeks prior to the day so that choices can be made and materials gathered. This also gives opportunities for support teams to be involved in such areas as catering, publicity and documentation. (Using skills such as writingfrom script writing to reportingword processing, desktop publishing, artwork, still photography, video making, data gathering and processing, public speaking, etc., all applied to a new situation.)

Classroom, club, and wet-day opportunities

The diversity of Challenges means they can be used as starter activities for several curriculum learning areas and topics in the classroom.

There are also opportunities for club activities for those who really want to hone their problem solving and design skills. During winter a series of Challenges could be run as wet day activities during the lunch hour.

Turn ordinary activities into Challenges by

• Adding constraints. For example, many activities require measurement or comparison, and adding a constraint such as: " by using only ", " using sources of ___ other than ", " in 15 minutes ", etc. can turn an ordinary exercise into an exciting challenge.
• Changing the materials and/or equipment normally used.
• Including 'Design and produce' problems in your programme. These can be very simple extensions of ordinary class work or much more complex, as when they may be asked to design an object with few restrictions.

This bridge over the Rakaia Gorge in Canterbury is the only example in the southern hemisphere with this type of truss. (See the 'Build a Bridge' Challenge on page 4.7 and the notes on page 5.1)