Rules and Regulations
Rules
All Sessions
Students must be between 14 and 18 years of age at the time of the competition.
Students must have signed all agreement and release forms (see below) to participate in the Michigan Brain Bee.
Students can only participate in one local Brain Bee per year.
All recording devices are strictly prohibited, other than those authorized by the University of Michigan. Note taking by students or audience members is also prohibited. This will result in immediate disqualification.
Any student or audience member that is being disruptive during the competition will be asked to leave. Students who are disruptive will be disqualified.
All electronic devices (cell phones, pages, MP3 players, etc.) must be turned off and put away during the competition.
Students will not be permitted to use the restroom during competition sessions. There will be breaks in between sessions.
Students must leave all bags and related personal belongings (backpacks, purses, laptop bags, etc.) with an audience member or in a designated area in the lecture hall during the competition.
Any student found cheating in the competition will be disqualified immediately.
Session 1
Session 1 of the Michigan Brain Bee will consist of a 1-hour, 55 question scantron multiple choice examination with questions of varying difficulty. Of the 55, five questions will be open-response with responses accepted as short phrases (two-three words maximum) and three will be designated as tiebreaker questions. All questions will be on content found on BrainFacts.com or in the Brain Facts PDF. During the testing period, parents and other guests accompanying the competitors will be asked to leave the testing area.
Session 2
The top competitors from Session 1 will move on to Session 2 of the Michigan Brain Bee. In session 2, participants will answer open-response questions on an individual whiteboard, and will be given 15 seconds after the end of each question to write down their answers, for which faculty judges will accordingly award points. Session 2 may also feature questions involving patient actors, 3D models, or diagrams, but all questions will have answers in the form of a short phrase, and will be based on content found on BrainFacts.com or in the Brain Facts PDF. At the end of Session II, the two top scoring participants will move on to Session 3. Ties will be broken using Session I scores.
Session 3
Session 3 of the Michigan Brain Bee will feature questions very similar to those found in Session 2, but will be in a head-to-head format in which each of the two participants will be asked a different question, which they will have 15 seconds to provide a verbal response to. The first participant to provide two incorrect answers will be eliminated from Session 3, and the other will be declared the winner of the Michigan Brain Bee. If no student has missed two questions in the allotted time period, the winner will be determined by results from Sessions 1 and 2. All ties will be broken at the discretion of the judges and the Michigan Brain Bee Committee.
Regulations
Please review the Code of Conduct. All students, guests, and faculty must abide by these guidelines while at the University of Michigan. Failure to do so will result in disqualification from the Michigan Brain Bee.
The Participant Conduct Agreement, Individual Participation Agreement, and Media Release forms must all be signed and turned in at competition day in order to participate. Participants are highly encouraged to bring the completed forms with them to the event or email them to michiganbrainbee@umich.edu prior to the event itself. Failure to do so will result in disqualification from the Michigan Brain Bee.