Spontaneous!

There are three different types of spontaneous problems you can have--verbal, verbal-hands-on and hands-on. A verbal problem might be "name types of trees" or "if you were flying a space vehicle to Mars what bumper sticker might you put on the spacecraft?" Verbal-hands-on often require you to hold an object and think of different uses for it. And hands-on problems will usually involve building something like a cantilevered bridge or a structure out of toothpicks and marshmallows.

The kids are sworn to secrecy until after closing ceremonies about which type of problem they got and what the problem was. Each problem/division has its own problem so every team you are competing directly against has the same problem. The best score is scaled to 100 points and everyone else is scaled accordingly. A great raw score can be from 50 to 150 points, and really how you score is based on how you stack up against your competitors.

All of the teams in all the problems and divisions do their spontaneous in the same hall. The photo above is of about 15 teams getting checked in at the same time. There's lots of cheering and excitement. Parents make bridges, squirt water guns and spray silly string when the kids come out. We had confetti eggs, but they got left in the dorm, so mainly we just yelled.

So, we won't know their final score until after closing ceremonies, but they came out happy and feeling great about how they did. So, we're thrilled with that!