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Starting Monday, April 14, 2008 at 12:00 noon UTC, and extending for 96 hours.
Winners will be announced on Tuesday, April 22, 2008 at 6:00 PM UTC on the competition web site.
- The Purple Comet! Middle/High School Mathematics Meet is open to
teams of students from anywhere in the world enrolled in middle school or high school
(or local equivalent), or home-schooled students who are at a comparable level.
- The contest is a team competition.
- A team may have as few as one student and as many as six students. No student
may participate on more than one team.
- A school may enter as many teams as they like. Each team is required to have
access to its own computer with an Internet connection. If two teams at the same school
need to share a computer, then the two teams are required to compete at different times
with one team completing the entire competition before the other team starts.
- Team members need not all be from the same school. There are three categories
of competition for each test level, one for teams made up exclusively of students from a single small
school, one for teams made up exclusively of students from a single large school, and one for teams
made up of students who do not all attend the same school. High schools qualify as small if they have
no more than 1200 students. Middle schools qualify as small if they have no more than
400 students.
- Teams may compete in the large school category, the small school category, or the combined team category.
All students from a large school team or a small school team must be enrolled as students in the same school.
The school size should be determined from the size of the student population from which potential team members
have been drawn. Some schools are spread out over a campus comprising several buildings. If a team could be
comprised of students from across the entire campus, then the entire campus should be considered when calculating
the school size. Combined teams are designed for home schooled students, students who all attend the same regional
mathematics club, or some other non-school organization. All the students from a single combined team must have a
residence within 150 miles (240 kilometers) of each other.
- Each team must have an adult supervisor (over the age of 20) present during the
competition. An adult supervisor may supervise more than one team.
- Team names may be edited if deemed inappropriate by the contest judges or if there are two teams
with the same name.
- The contest will be conducted via Internet web form. Teams may fill in answers
to the questions during the prescribed time for their team (60 minutes for middle
school teams, 90 minutes for high school teams) following their log-in to the contest.
At any time contestants can click the
SUBMIT button to submit their team's entry. Answers may be submitted multiple
times by the same team, but only the last set of answers received before the
contest ends will be accepted and graded. Partial submissions are accumulated. Consequently,
if a team submits an answer to problem 1 and later wises to submit an answer
to problem 2, there is no need to resubmit the answer to problem 1.
- Contestants are allowed to work on the contest problems as a team.
No help may be provided by persons not on their team. Team members and team supervisors
must not reveal or discuss contest problems with anyone other than their immediate team
members until the contest officially ends at Friday, April 18, 2008 at 12:00 noon UTC.
- All problems in the competition are designed so that they can be
worked without the aid of calculating devices. On the other hand,
participants are permitted to use calculators or computers, for example,
to write a computer program in order solve or better understand a
problem. Team members may also refer to books, computer programs, or other reference materials available to them locally as long as the students seek this material without aid from persons not on their team.
- Participants may not use computers or any other communication devices
to seek help with problem solutions from people or Internet resources
outside of their own team members.
- Ideally, if computers are made available, they should be different from the
computer used to access the competition website, and should be physically
disconnected from the Internet during the time when students are actively
working on problem solutions. If this is not possible, then adult
supervisors are asked to monitor participant use of computers
carefully.
- Teams may enter either as a Middle School team or a High School
team. The competition questions for Middle School teams will be less in
number and of a lesser degree of difficulty than those for High School teams,
although there may be some overlap in the questions.
- All Middle School team members must be students who have not yet
completed the eighth grade (or local equivalent), and who are under the age of 16,
as of the date of the competition.
- All High School team members must be students who have not yet
graduated from secondary school (or local equivalent), and who are under the age of 20,
as of the date of the competition.
- The decision of the competition judges is final.
- The official time is the time as determined by the purplecomet.org
server.
- Any circumstances not covered by these rules may be decided at the
discretion of the competition designers.
- These rules may be ammended from time to time without notice. The
rules in effect at the start of the competition are the official rules of the competition.
- The contest is free to all participants, although your gifts to help cover the expenses of running the event are
welcome. Learn how you can help.
 | Dr. Titu
Andreescu, Primary competition designer, and competition judge |
Former Head Coach of the US Math Olympiad Team and Director of the MAA American Mathematics Competitions, and
Associate Professor of Science/Mathematics Education, UT-Dallas.
| Dr. Jonathan Kane,
Competition designer and coordinator |
Professor of Mathematical and Computer Sciences, UW-Whitewater
| Dr. Bennette
Harris, Technical support and web site design |
Associate Professor and Department Chair,
Mathematical and Computer Sciences, UW-Whitewater
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