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Rules and conditions of entry (updated 21 February 2012)

1.1 The STEM Challenges competition is open to teams of up to six students in the age range 11-16yrs in registered state schools in the UK.

1.2 A school must register on the STEM Challenges website in order to access detailed challenge information and add/edit team entry details. A maximum of four teams may then be registered per school for STEM Challenge 10 (STEM Challenges 1-9 were allowed to enter a maximum of two teams).

1.3 There shall be no obligation on a registered school to enter any of the challenges.

1.4 A named member of staff must be identified for each STEM Challenge school and contact details must also be provided.

1.5 No person may be part of more than one team in the same challenge.

1.6 The work submitted by a team must be their own. If the judges have any reason to doubt the origins of an entry, they reserve the right to request further evidence to justify said origins. In the event that this cannot be provided, the judges reserve the right to disqualify the entry.

1.6A Video - STEM Challenge 10 The (up to) two-minute video submitted as part of a team entry must be original, not defamatory and not infringing any UK laws; consent must be obtained from any person outside the team who appears in the video (or the consent of a parent/carer if there are children under 16). By submitting video as part of a team entry, the registered school agrees to grant to Cisco and the Pearson Foundation, free of charge, permission to use the video on the 'Out of the blocks' website, where it will be available for public viewing: it will not be downloadable, but only as streamed content. It may also be selected to appear for public display, broadcast or other dissemination at any Awards related publicity event.

1.7 STEMNET will select independent and trained STEM Ambassadors to carry out the judging. Participating schools must be willing to travel to a twilight regional judging event or agree to host a regional judging event. All STEM Ambassadors are CRB checked.

1.8 Should a team make it through as a national finalist, the school must be willing to participate in publicity associated with the STEM Challenges, the STEM Clubs Network and/or STEMNET.

1.9 The Judges' decision is final.

1.10 Participating finalist team schools undertake to make their team and a member of staff available for the national final at their own cost, (including covering associated transport costs, supply teacher cover). The national final for each challenge will be advertised with the information for that particular challenge.

1.11 STEMNET may, in exceptional circumstances, offer a discretionary travel bursary to finalist team schools. This offer is in no way binding and will be awarded solely at the discretion of STEMNET.

1.12 Certain prizes may require overseas travel and/or overnight stays. In the event of a team being unavailable to travel, there shall be no obligation on STEMNET, the STEM Challenges project or any of the project partners to reschedule the prize trip.

1.13 There shall be no cash prize alternatives.

STEM Challenges Website - Terms of Use

By sharing any contribution (including any text, photographs, graphics, video or audio) with the STEM Challenges website you agree to grant STEMNET and its project partners, free of charge, permission to use the material in any way it wants (including modifying and adapting it for operational and editorial reasons).

Copyright in your contribution will remain with you and this permission is not exclusive, so you can continue to use the material in any way including allowing others to use it.

In order that the STEM Challenges project can use your contribution, you confirm that your contribution is your own original work, is not defamatory and does not infringe any English laws, that you have the right to give the STEM Challenges project permission to use it for the purposes specified above, and that you have the consent of anyone who is identifiable in your contribution or the consent of their parent/guardian if they are under 16.

STEMNET or its contract holders may need to contact you for administrative or verification purposes in relation to your contribution, including arranging for a STEM Ambassador to visit your school during the judging process.

Please do not endanger yourself or others, take any unnecessary risks or break any laws when creating content you may share with the STEM Challenges website.

If you have any questions about contributing content to the STEM Challenges website please contact webmaster@stemchallenges.net.

In order to participate in and contribute to selected STEM Challenges areas you will be required to register with stemchallenges.net. Any personal information supplied to stemchallenges.net as part of this registration process and/or any other interaction with stemchallenges.net will be collected, stored and used in accordance with the Privacy and Data Protection Policies shown.

About your Challenge entries

No disruptive, offensive or abusive behaviour: Contributions must be constructive and polite, not mean-spirited or contributed with the intention of causing trouble.

No unlawful or objectionable content: unlawful, harassing, defamatory, abusive, threatening, harmful, obscene, profane, sexually orientated, racially offensive or otherwise objectionable material is not acceptable.

No advertising or promoting.

Contributions containing languages other than English may be removed.

No impersonation.

No inappropriate (e.g. vulgar, offensive, etc) user names or email addresses.

Your stemchallenges.net account

If you attempt to use multiple logins for the purpose of disrupting stemchallenges.net or annoying other users you may have action taken against all of your accounts. All accounts must be registered with a valid personal email address that you access regularly so that moderation and administration emails can be sent to you. Accounts registered with someone else's email address, or with temporary email addresses may be closed without notice. We may require users to re-validate their account if we believe they have been using an invalid email address.

STEMNET reserves the right to close accounts if any user is seen to be using proxy IPs (Internet Protocol addresses) in order to attempt to hide the use of multiple stemchallenges.net accounts, or if a non-UK user pretends to be a UK user, or disrupts any of our services in any way.

Legal Requirements

You may not submit or share any defamatory or illegal material of any nature on stemchallenges.net. This includes text, graphics, video programmes or audio. Contributing material to stemchallenges.net with the intention of committing or promoting an illegal act is strictly prohibited.

You agree to submit to or share with stemchallenges.net only contributions which are your own original work. You must not violate, plagiarise, or infringe the rights of STEMNET or third parties including copyright, trademark, trade secrets, privacy, publicity, personal or proprietary rights.

If you are under 16

Please get a parent or guardian's permission before taking part in any area of stemchallenges.net. A teacher will be required to register your team on your behalf.

Never reveal any personal information about yourself or anyone else in your online challenge entry (eg. school, telephone number, your full name, home address or email address).

If you breach these rules

If you fail to abide by these rules (and/or any variations) when taking part in any area of stemchallenges.net you will be sent an email which informs you why your contribution has been refused or edited. This email will also include a warning that continuing to break the rules may result in action being taken against your account or accounts.

This action may include any content posted by you being checked before allowed to go on the site or a temporary or permanent suspension of your ability to participate in any or all of the stemchallenges.net areas.

If you submit or share offensive or inappropriate content to or with any area on stemchallengess.net or otherwise engage in any disruptive behaviour on stemchallenges.net, and STEMNET considers such behaviour to be serious and/or repeated, STEMNET may use whatever information that is available to it about you to stop any further such infringements. This may include informing relevant third parties such as your employer, parent or guardian, school or email provider about the infringement(s).
STEMNET reserves the right to delete any contribution, or take action against any STEM Challenges website account, at any time, for any reason.

Disclaimers and Limitations of Liability

Where content posted on the stemchallenges.net website has been created by members of the public the views expressed are theirs and unless specifically stated are not those of STEMNET and its project partners. Neither STEMNET nor its project partners are responsible for any content posted by members of the public on stemchallenges.net or for the availability or content of any third party sites that are accessible through stemchallenges.net. Any links to third party websites from stemchallenges.net or stemclubs.net do not amount to any endorsement of that site by STEMNET, the STEM Clubs Network or the STEM Challenges project and any use of that site by you is at your own risk.

Stemchallenges.net content, including the information, names, images, pictures, logos and icons regarding or relating to STEMNET, the STEM Clubs Network, the STEM Challenges and project partners is provided "As Is" and on an "As Available" basis.

STEMNET does not guarantee the timelines, completeness or performance of the website or any of the content. While we try to ensure that all content provided by the STEM Challenges and its project partners is correct at the time of publication no responsibility is accepted by or on behalf of STEMNET and the STEM Challenges project for any errors, omissions or inaccurate content on the website.

STEMNET and the STEM Challenges project do not warrant that functions available on stemchallenges.net will be uninterrupted or error free, that defects will be corrected, or that stemchallenges.net or the server that make it available are free of viruses or bugs. You acknowledge that it is your responsibility to implement sufficient procedures and virus checks (including anti-virus and other security checks) to satisfy your particular requirements for the accuracy of data input and output.
General

The failure or delay of STEMNET to exercise any right in these terms does not waive STEMNET's right to enforce that right.

These terms shall be governed by and interpreted in accordance with the laws of England which shall have exclusive jurisdiction over any disputes.

If you would like to contact STEMNET about these Terms of Use, then please use the contact information on the Contact Us page.

Updated 21 February 2012