M-802

Process for Administering Distributed Academic Competitions

The process manages the progression of matches within an academic competition, such as the National Science Bowl®. Digital clocks indicate remaining time of a match, the time for answering a question, and the time between sessions. The electronic scoreboard simplifies scorekeeping and prevents errors. All participants and spectators can see this display for increased awareness. Results from each venue are transmitted electronically to the competition coordinator to expedite placing teams for subsequent rounds. A record of all the responses is maintained in a database. This enables analyzing the results to measure the teams’ abilities and the degree of difficulty of the different questions. The database also enables restoring the state of play if a match is interrupted.

No.: 

M-802

Inventor(s): 

Andrew P Zwicker

Eliot A Feibush