Changes to the 2026 Purple Comet! Math Meet

The Purple Comet! Math Meet website at https://purplecomet.org has been completely rewritten in preparation for the 2026 contest. In addition, there have been several changes to procedures and some rule changes for the contest.

Supervisor Login

Before 2026, supervisors were given a login ID and password to use to log into their supervisor accounts. This has changed. A supervisor’s login ID will now be the email address that they used to register their supervisor account. All passwords have been changed. A supervisor wanting to continue using their old supervisor account can be sent their new password by clicking the RESEND PASSWORD button on the supervisor login page. New supervisor will now be asked to enter a name, email address, city, and country, and can optionally enter a school name and telephone number. When a supervisor creates a team, the school name and location information will default to agree with the supervisor’s information, but these settings can be changed for each team.

Use of Computational Tools

Although the problems in the Purple Comet! Math Meet are designed so that they can be worked without the use of calculators, students are welcome to use calculators or computers to help them perform computations. Students may write computer programs or use computer tools for the purpose of making calculations or drawing diagrams. These tools can include programs available on the students’ computers as well as calculating tools available online such as spreadsheet programs, WolframAlpha, Mathematica, Maple, Desmos, Derive, or GeoGebra. Students may use books and other reference materials such as class notes as long as the materials are available to them at the location where they are participating in the competition. Students may not use the Internet to find needed definitions or instructional materials that tell them about how to solve problems. Students must produce their methods for solving problems and can only use calculators and computer tools to make calculations. In particular, students may not query their Internet browser about how to solve a particular problem, nor may they use generative artificial intelligence tools (AI) including but not limited to ChatGPT, Gemini, Copilot, or Claude to produce, explain, or verify answers, interpret problems, or generate computer code, text, or mathematical reasoning. That is, students must decide how to solve the problems, but they can use computer tools to aid their calculations. The Purple Comet! Math Meet does not allow any tools that inform students about the methods they should use to solve problems or allow students to solve problems without knowing the methods needed.

The Team Member Distance Rule

In the past, the Purple Comet! Math Meet required that all members of the same team must live within 150 miles (240 kilometers) from each other. The purpose of this rule was to discourage countries from gathering their best students to form a team that would likely achieve the highest score in that country. The Purple Comet! Math Meet wants to encourage healthy competition between schools. In this day of easy Internet communications, it makes less sense to restrict teams geographically, so the contest is dropping its distance rule. Teams formed with students who attend more than one school should be entered in the MIXED TEAMS category, which is designed for that purpose. Teams still need to be registered from a particular country, and within the United States of America, be registered from a particular state.