SCRATCH COMPETITION RULES 2018-2019 GENERAL 1. The competition is open to students aged from 6 to 18 years. 2. The competition is divided into three categories, open category, regular challenge and Scrobot category. 3. In the open category participants may develop and program an animation or an interactive story or a video game. 4. The open category is open to participants from 6 to 18 years old in the state of Qatar (all students and all nationalities) and to participants from all over the World (Participation of students from schools from all over the world is accepted) 5. The regular challenge is open only to participants from schools based in the state of Qatar (all students and all nationalities) from 12 to 18 years old. 6. The Scrobot category is open only to participants from schools based in the state of Qatar (all students and all nationalities) from 6 to 18 years old. 7. In the Scrobot category participants may design, build and program their own intelligent robotics/electronics solution and code their own Srcatch code. The topic of each edition is to be announced each year. 8. The competition is divided into three age levels, Elementary, Middle, and High School. 9. Age Group definition for the open and Scrobot category 1. Elementary (Primary) School Age: Participants from 6 to 12 years old by the registration deadline. 2. Junior (Preparatory/Middle) School Age: Participants from 12 years old and 1 day to 15 years old by the registration deadline. 3. Senior (Secondary/High) School Age: Participants 15 years old and 1 day to 18 years old in by the registration deadline. 10. The competition is open to teams representing a school or independent teams who attend coding clubs outside of school hours. 11. A team consists of one (1) coach and one (1) or two (2) team members. 12. Coaches could be teachers or mentors from outside the school, such as scientists and parents etc. 13. The minimum age of a coach is 20 years old at the time of registration for the competition. 14. Coaches may work with more than one team; however, each team needs to be assisted by only one coach. 15. Team members can work alone without a mentor coach. 16. This year's theme competition is
a. Open Category: Sustainable development goals of UNESCO and mainly on how these sustainable development goals (SDGs) can echo the reality of Qatar nowadays. b. Scrobot Category: World Cup 2022 in Qatar. 17. Schools can register more than one team. Entries can only be accepted if the school/club/independent participant has been registered using the official registration form on the official website. 18. Upon registration, teachers/mentors/participants must make sure that all information has been entered correctly. 19. The organizer of the competition can limit the number of projects submission per Schools/Clubs when necessary. 20. No student can be involved in more than one project in each category. 21. Students aged between 12 and 18 years can register for open and Scrobot category and regular challenge task. 22. Students aged between 6 and 18 years can register for both open category and Scrobot category. 23. When an entry is submitted, permission is granted to the organizers of the competition to make unrestricted use of the entry in the future for publicity or educational purposes. In such use, the organizers will make sure that the author/school is clearly acknowledged. 24. The selected top teams from each category will be invited to present their projects in front of a panel of judges. 25. Coaches and participants must make sure that all information, e-mail and phone numbers are entered correctly, as it will be used to send convocations, news and others information regarding the competition. 26. Participants must respect the deadline of registration and projects submission. Any delay on submitting projects will disqualify the team. Please review Agenda section on the official website. PROJECTS 27. Projects are accepted in English, French and Arabic languages. 28. The project must be created using Scratch programming language ONLY. Projects can be developed online or using the offline editor which can be downloaded for free at scratch.mit.edu. Projects developed in Version 1.4 or 2.0 will be accepted. 29. Students may install the Scratch 2.0 editor or 3.0 to work on projects without an internet connection (Offline). This version will work on Mac, Windows, and some versions of Linux (32 bit). At the end, the project must be uploaded to the Scratch MIT websites and the url submitted to the competition. 30. Link to download Scratch 2.0 editor : https://scratch.mit.edu/download 31. Entries must be original works created by the team or individual submitting the entry. 32. If your entry incorporates music, sound, text or images, you must own the rights to use that material.
33. Schools/Clubs may run their own competition to determine the best projects. 34. The competition organizers reserve the right to disqualify any entry based on inappropriate or copyrighted content and any entries which do not adhere to the competition rules and guidelines. 35. The final project should be well commented, comments in the Scratch program are adjustable textboxes that have to be attached to the program. E.g. if your final project is a game you have to explain the game instructions well before starting. 36. Each project/program has to be handed in with a PDF or WORD document. The document should clearly state and present an overview about your project. 37. In each category related to each age range, the organizer will invite selected teams to present their work and give an overview about it in front of a panel of judges. This presentation will be assessed according to a predefined evaluation grid. The teams convened can present in Arabic, French or English. 38. Team members may be questioned by the judges for a time period of 5 minutes or fewer. Judges may ask questions to seek clarification regarding the methods used and/or general understanding. 39. Candidates can present their work with or without a digital support. 40. The evaluation grid of the presentation is published on the official website of the QNSCC. OPEN CATEGORY. 41. Participants in the Open category will have to create with Scratch; video games, animations or short stories related to the sustainable development goals of UNESCO and mainly on how these sustainable development goals (SDGs) can echo the reality of Qatar nowadays and its 2030 Vision. Through developing policies and strategic planning to monitor national progress. 42. Participants have to refer to the Projects Themes and Topics section in the official website www.qnscc.com to get further details about the topic requirements of Open, Regular and Scrobot Categories. 43. Entries can only be accepted if they are accessible via the Scratch website at scratch.mit.edu. 44. Coaches have to make sure that their projects urls (links) are available and published online. Projects with restricted access are dropped straight away from the lists and will not be evaluated by the judges. 45. Offline projects must also be uploaded to scratch.mit.edu 46. The unique URL link (this link must direct judges to the exact project) must be added alongside the corresponding registered project at the official website of the competition. 47. Any modification or update happening on the online published project after the submission deadline will automatically marks a zero to the score of the project. Please note that the last update time is mentioned down on the right of the online Scratch website. To avoid any risk, teams and/or coach are NOT allowed to browse the project with EDIT mode after the submission deadline date.
48. Judges are able to check the remix tree of the project when scoring the work and will make sure that the work is an original production of students, unless project will be scored zero. SCROBOT CATEGORY (OPEN ONLY FOR PARTICIPANT IN THE STATE OF QATAR) 49. The novelty of this year is the Scratch Robot (Scrobot) Category. 50. Students are called to create nice programs using scratch to command a robot. The controllers platforms can be: LEGO, Arduino, Raspberry and all robots that can be programmed with scratch. 51. Theme of this category of this year is the World Cup 2022 in Qatar. 52. Students have to submit a description file for their project. 53. Students HAVE to submit (a link of Youtube video) also a 2 minutes video as proof for their project. 54. The video must show the ability of the robot to run the program. 55. The robot must run a Scratch code ONLY. 56. The robot design and size are limited by the students imagination. 57. Selected projects will be presented in front of panel of judges experts in robotics and electronics. 58. Student can design also decoration, flyers and posters to showcase their work when presenting to judges. 59. Best teams will be invited to display their projects at QNCC as part of Qatar National Research Week. Details, invitation and convening notice will be communicated to coaches by e-mail before the D-day. REGULAR CHALLENGE CATEGORY (OPEN ONLY TO PARTICIPANTS FROM SCHOOLS BASED IN THE STATE OF QATAR. ALL STUDENTS AND ALL NATIONALITIES) 60. The category of regular challenge will be held in March 2019. 61. Participants in the regular challenge category will receive a detailed convening letter about time and location. 62. Participants in this category will be first selected depending on the following criteria: - Involving as maximum number of participating schools. - Final number of accepted participants in this category is subject of the facilities/logistics limitations determined by the QNCC. - A school participating with more than one team, their teams will take an online simultaneous exam to select best team by school. 63. After the short-listing step, selected candidates will receive a registration validation with a convening notice. 64. The file/registration validation is not by any means, questionable or disputable by candidates.
65. The problem is adapted for participants aged 12 to 18 years old. 66. Participants in the Regular Challenge category will have to solve with Scratch a real time problem related to algorithmic. 67. The duration of the challenge exam is 3 hours maximum. 68. The organizer will provide laptops for the students, no flash disks, and external hard disks are accepted. Internet will not be available. 69. The real time challenge will be supervised by judges. 70. It is strictly forbidden to use mobile phones during the challenge test. 71. Malpractice and non-compliance with the above mentioned directives will render the participant subject to disqualification and other sanctions. 72. A selected team to take the regular challenge in QNCC, is eliminated if the team does not show up the day of the challenge ON TIME. 73. A selected team to take the regular challenge in QNCC, that cannot attend the challenge contest, must notify the committee by email 3 days at least before the challenge date. 74. The evaluation grid of the regular challenge depends on the theme chosen. It will be published in the official website the following day of the competition. JUDGING 75. Each entry will be reviewed by a panel of judges. The judges will award points according to the judges score card, which provides detailed information in relation to what the Judges will be looking for. These score sheets will be used by the Judges during all stages of the competition. 76. The decisions of the judging panel are final and no correspondence will be entered into. 77. The jury members are professionals of Information, Computer Sciences Technologies, Robotics and Electronics. INTERNATIONAL CANDIDATURE (OPEN ONLY TO PARTICIPANTS FROM SCHOOLS BASED IN THE STATE OF QATAR. ALL STUDENTS AND ALL NATIONALITIES) 78. Time of closure is referred to the local time of the state of Qatar. 79. Shortlisted teams are invited as well to present their work to a panel of judges using a skype meeting or an online conference. Candidates will receive a convening letter and invitation with all details. 80. Participants who will not be able to present their work will be scored zero in the presentation score. 81. International participants will present their projects online using skype. PRIZES AND AWARDS 82. Each registered Scratch competitor will receive a certificate of participation.
83. Each awarded coach/competitor/ school will receive an awarding certificate. 84. There will be separate awards for : -Best Animation/interactive story / video game Award for elementary -Best Animation/ interactive story /video game Award for junior -Best Animation/ interactive story / video game Award for senior -Best Foreign project - Scrobot Category award. -Regular challenge winner - Overall Winner PUBLICATIONS/PHOTOS/MEDIA AND PRESS 85. All participants are subject to be photographed by our/partners/sponsors media and press teams. Participants that do not allow their photos being published on media/press/social media websites MUST send us an email mentioning: Disagree with the 85 th term as the email subject. COMMUNICATION We will be happy to answer any question, to support any problem that you face during your registration/submission process BY EMAIL ONLY: contact@qnscc.com. No phone calls/whatsapp messages will be answered. Organizing teams are all volunteers and have professional commitments.