Team Challenges are designed to be open-ended and multidisciplinary. Teams spend several weeks or months working on the Team Challenge of their choice in order to present their solutions at the Affiliate Tournament. Each of the six competitive Team Challenges has a different educational and creative focus:

Challenge A Technical Challenge B Scientific Challenge Challenge C Fine Arts Challenge D Improvisational Challenge E Structural Project OUTREACH® Service Learning Rising Stars® Non-competitive

There is also a Non-Competitive Rising Stars!® Challenge designed for students in pre-school through 2nd grade that introduces students to teamwork and creative thinking.

Instant Challenges require teams to engage in quick, critical thinking. Instant Challenges are Performance-based, Task-based, or a combination of the two.  At a Tournament, a team will receive an Instant Challenge and the materials with which to solve it. Team members must think on their feet by applying appropriate skills to produce a solution in a period of just 5 - 8 minutes. Although each Instant Challenge has different requirements, each rewards teams for their teamwork and the creativity of their solutions.  While Team Challenges build long-term problem solving and teamwork skills, Instant Challenges provide exciting, impromptu creative experiences for competing teams. By practicing Instant Challenges during the course of the season, students can increase their improvisational skills and train their minds to work quickly.  Take a look at some Instant Challenges.

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