FAQs

How much time does my child have to contribute to join the U.S. Challenge?

Total of two hours per week. We have weekly one-hour group tutoring sessions, during the challenge, and we expect our students to spend another hour per week on self-guided activities.

Are the Challenge activities suitable for my child if her skills are ahead or behind others in her grade?

The Challenge activities are personalized and adjust to the level of your child's skill no matter how far ahead or behind the perceived average grade skills they are. There are two types of activities. The first is solving the Math, Computer Science, and Robotics activities. The second is creating their own 3D worlds called Poly Machines. The suggested new machines for each student are personalized based on their track record on the previous machines. There is no limit on how simple or how complex a machine can be. Therefore both sets of activities are highly personalized with very low floor and no ceiling.

My child is already in math tutoring and engaged in CS/robotics activities. How is this different from what they are currently doing?

The U.S. Challenge connects curricular math and CS to innovative solutions to real-life problems on a project-based learning program with no ceiling. Students get prepared for the innovation economy by collaborating in creating innovative solutions to global issues like designing scalable use of solar energy, scalable clean water, sustainable food production, or Gigaton carbon removal. Based on the independent research by WestED and Computational Thinking Alliance, the U.S. Challenge creates a wide range of learning outcomes from 27% improvement in math skills on NAEP Math test items, to 2x improvement in their attitude toward math, to Computational Thinking and Systems Thinking through Experiential Learning. The U.S. Challenge is not competing with math tutoring classes or Robotic activities. It teaches students how to model their solutions using standard math skills and how to innovate sustainable and scalable solutions with in-depth systems thinking. Students that go through the seasonal Challenges perform significantly better in their curricular STEM and extracurricular coding and robotics activities.

How is this program exciting for young students and teenagers?

The average session time is 25 minutes per session in the U.S. Challenge. The last published average session time on Fortnite, one of the most popular games of all time is 22 minutes per session. We have been able to identify the following reasons behind the high engagement in the U.S. Challenge:

  • Creating your own 3D World: Students build their own 3D worlds that are coded and come to life with math. This is similar to Minecraft, but to make the world dynamic they do not need to know complex coding. Knowing math is what brings it to life.

  • Storytelling and The Cool Factor: Kids build machines to tell their stories to others. The power of being able to build the animation behind any story they’d like to tell makes them cool to their peers.

  • The Growth Mindset: Success in the U.S. Challenge does not depend on the classical grade. Any kid can learn no matter the starting point and enjoy the aha moment of learning a new concept and creating their new solution.

  • Polycoins: Kids can earn Polycoin from learning or helping others learn in all Math, CS, and Robotics activities. Polycoin is the first learning currency and students can use it to open up the next U.S. Challenge season.  

  • The Leaderboard: Every week, for five weeks, the students submit one of their created machines. In the last week of the challenge, students submit their project about one of the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals. The final leaderboard is ⅔ based on their project and rated by others in the community, and ⅓ based on the XP points gained by solving Math, CS, and Robotics activities.

  • Innovation Hub: Those on the leaderboard will get the chance in the next two U.S. Challenge seasons to first join, and then found startup teams to create new parts libraries. They learn design, leadership, and communication skills as they help to scale up their startup success.

I can’t seem to get my child interested in math. How does this program make kids excited about something that’s currently difficult for them?

Math is boring when it’s learned for the promise of a return in the future. In the U.S. Challenge kids leverage math skills immediately to build cooler machines. The immediate satisfaction creates a powerful engine. Since the kids use the math skills to build cool stories for their peers the interest in math exponentially increases.

What topics are covered in the math content?

All U.S. Challenge math activities are aligned with Common Core. Moreover, the algorithmic overlap between math and computer science is covered by the computer science activities aligned with the  CSTA (Computer Science Teacher Association) Computer Science Standards. The key focus is on the Computational Thinking and Creative Problem Solving aspects of the standards. The activities are specific to grade levels, as follows:

  • K-2 math activities start with counting and expand to basic number sense and arithmetic operations. In CS and Robotics basic movements, and sequential logic is introduced.

  • 3rd-5th grade activities start with mastery in number sense and arithmetic operations and expand to creative problem-solving. More geometric algorithmic concepts are introduced in CS and Robotics.

  • In the 6th-8th grades, activities cover algebra and geometry with emphasis on real-life applications. In CS and robotics, conditional logic and full robotics are covered. Students animate 3D Parts with math, opening the door to model STEAM.

  • From a computational point of view, in the 9th-11th grades, activities dive into more advanced algebra, geometry, and calculus. All dynamics types are covered. Advanced algorithms and robotics are introduced.

What is the PolyUp Innovation Hub?

The PolyUp Innovation Hub is an internship opportunity for the Seasonal Global Challenges to prepare K-12 students for the innovation economy and connect math to entrepreneurship. We use the Polycoin economy as the playground for the PolyUp Innovation Hub members to learn how to build successful startups. The interns are selected based on specific criteria from their previous season Challenge performance. During the internships and running their startup, they will learn Design, Leadership, and Communication skills under the guidance of the experienced PolyUp team mentors.

  • PolyUp Innovation Hub interns have activities for 3 hours per week, one more hour than standard Challenge participation, as follows:

    • Participate in the weekly one-hour LevelUp session. This is similar to all other Challenge participants with the difference being that the Innovation Hub interns lead the Level Up sessions.

    • One hour of self-directed activities. This is similar to all other Challenge participants with the difference being that the Innovation Hub interns collaborate with others in their startup teams and in addition to building new machines, they also design, develop, and market new parts libraries.

    • One hour online scrum session with all other global interns in the Innovation Hub to sync with their other team members, update all the Innovation Hub community of their progress, and a 15-minute inspirational session by an industry leader in Design, Leadership, or Communication.