Rules and Rig

Rules

Rules PDF  Visual Rules

The 2025 rules in Spanish and Vietnamese will be posted in early November 2024.

Rig Drawings

Updates to Rules

As The Tech Challenge progresses, participating teams and The Tech staff may discover that the rules must be updated. All changes will be posted on The Tech Challenge website, and registered teams will be notified by email regarding significant changes. Changes posted to the website will be labeled by date. Please check the website often for updates.

Rules FAQs

Safety

During device testing, the top priority is safety. Judges are authorized to stop any activity they view as unsafe. Teams are expected to handle and operate their devices safely. The judges’ word is final on safety-related issues.

 

Spirit of the Challenge

The Tech Challenge emphasizes the importance of engineering solutions that would be practical in real life. Test rigs involve small-scale representations of real-world conditions.

 

The Spirit of the Challenge is an important factor in scoring. The best engineering journals document an understanding of real-world factors. Teams should expect judges to ask questions such as “How can the ideas you’ve used for your solution be applied in real life?” 

 

While store-bought solutions are not prohibited, they are not in the Spirit of the Challenge.