Challenges

Teams can proposed projects that are either open in the 3 categories (learning by playing, learn by doing, learn by questionning) or can choose one of the targeted challenges that have been proposed by the organisers.

Open challenges

- learning by playing : teams are invited to propose new scientific discovery games (on line games that can allow players to contribute to research see fold-it or eteRNA for example)

- learn by doing : teams can propose new hands-on experiments that are cheap to perform and relevant scientifically (see hands-on research school for inspiration).

- learn by questionning : teams are invited to propose new « socratic technologies » (Socrates was against writing and painting the only modern means of communications available then as they did not allow the dialogue he’s famous for). The challenge here is to invent technologies that can foster the socratic method.

Targeted challenges : the organizers have selected topics that teams are invited to contribute to by proposing hard-ware, software and hands-on approaches to integrate real life and simulations and make them accessible to even the youngest night scientists.

- Origaming : invent ANA (Artificial Nucleic Acids = macroscopic DNA) that can fold into origamis in 2D and 3D structure mimicking what happens on the nanoscale with DNA origamis so far accessible only to scientists equipped with expensive technologies.

- Pet-science (invent ways to allow any pet lover to generate, share and analyze data from their favorite animals)

- Robogenics (create an ecosystem including virtual and real robots that any one can play with on line and in real life for a minimum cost).

Spirit of the contest

Open source: all the ideas proposed by the people involved in the contest would be protected under a creative commons licence to allow every one to share them and develop them and re-use them for the benefit of all.

Co-opetition: Another important dimension of the contest is described by the new word “co-opetition” which describe a cooperative competition where every one is invited to improve the ideas of others. Every team is invited to document their progress on a wiki page and all participants are invited to contribute to the ideas they find the most relevant. The jury will analyse the wiki pages and will take into account the ability of participants to contribute to the progress of the different projects they have contributed to.