Competition Rules

The Challenge

Get ready to level up your creativity, skills, and impact! In the Innovation Challenge, your team will design and launch a digital game that’s not only fun and addictive but also powerful enough to measure key cognitive abilities that shape how we learn and solve problems.

Each team will pick one of the following abilities to focus on:

• Memory – Can players recall and adapt under pressure?

• Pattern Recognition – Who can spot the hidden connections fastest?

• Calculation – How sharp are your math and problem-solving skills?

• Logic – Can players think critically and make smart moves?

• Attention – How well can someone stay focused in the middle of distractions?

• Processing Speed – How quickly can the brain turn information into action?

• Spatial Reasoning – Who can navigate complex spaces and puzzles with ease?

• Creativity & Flexibility – How well can someone think outside the box when the rules change?

But here’s the twist: your game won’t just be about high scores, it will connect to LearnerSnapshot, a groundbreaking app that analyzes gameplay to measure students’ cognitive abilities and predict how they’ll perform academically and on standardized tests.

This means your team’s creation will do more than entertain. It will transform play into insight—helping students discover their strengths, sharpen their skills, and unlock new levels of potential.

So bring your best ideas, your problem-solving power, and your love for competition. This is your chance to build something unforgettable—something that’s fun to play, meaningful in impact, and designed by students like you.

Your Team

Every great game starts with a great team.

Each Innovation Challenge team will be made up of five members. To qualify, you must be a high school student in grades 9–12—but here’s the twist: your teammates don’t have to come from the same school.

That means you can build a team with classmates, friends from other schools, or even peers you meet through the Challenge community. This opens the door for fresh ideas, diverse skills, and powerful collaboration across different backgrounds and experiences.

Your team is your greatest strength. Together, you’ll brainstorm, design, test, and launch a digital game that’s fun, competitive, and impactful. Whether you’re the coder, the designer, the strategist, the storyteller, or the motivator—there’s a place for you.

Five students. One vision. Unlimited possibilities.

Your Idea

At the heart of the Innovation Challenge is one simple rule: your game must be your team’s original idea.

That means the spark has to come from you and your teammates. The concept, the gameplay, the mechanics—all should be born from your creativity, collaboration, and vision.

Of course, you don’t have to do it alone. Your team can seek advice, mentorship, and feedback from teachers, parents, coaches, professionals, or even online resources. In fact, we encourage you to learn from as many sources as possible. But when it comes down to the core concept, it needs to be your team’s creation—a game that reflects your imagination and problem-solving power.

Originality is what makes this challenge exciting. No two games will be alike, and each one will showcase the unique perspective and talents of the team that built it.

Think bold. Think fresh. Think like innovators.
Your idea is where it all begins.

Your Timeline

Big ideas don’t come together overnight—and we don’t want you to wait until the last minute. To help your team stay on track, we’ve created a step-by-step timeline that guides you from your first brainstorming session in November to the big stage in April.

Along the way, you’ll make incremental progress—turning your idea into a playable, polished game. These checkpoints will keep you moving forward, showing that your team is actively designing, testing, and improving your game throughout the challenge.

Why does this matter? Because by Friday, April 24th, your team should be ready for the moment that counts:

• Displaying your game for the Innovation Challenge audience.

• Having students, guests, and judges play your game.

• Receiving evaluation and feedback from expert judges.

• And most importantly—watching your game connect with LearnerSnapshot to help predict the academic potential of students through the way they play.

This timeline isn’t just about deadlines—it’s about building confidence, sharpening your ideas, and making sure your team is fully prepared to shine.

Step by step, month by month, you’ll turn an idea into an innovation that could change how we see learning itself.