Academic Challenge | West Mifflin

This is a contest of quick recall and general knowledge of all subject areas. Rounds consist of both oral and written format with points being awarded for both individual and group responses.


Academic Endeavors | East Allegheny

This is an academic competition using five different games that develop high-level thinking and strategy developing skills. The games will include Scrabble, Stratego, Backgammon, Othello, and Quiddler. These games are designed and built upon verbal and mathematical abilities. Team members must evaluate their opponent's position and develop a strategy to maximize total points. Each school will be permitted to bring one team of five students. The highest individual scores and highest team scores (the combined of all the team members scores) will be tallied and the top scorers in each category (individual and team) will be recognized.


A-mazing and Puzzling Competition | South Allegheny

This competition is one in which students are presented with a variety of number, word, language, spatial puzzles and mazes. Weather permitting, students are challenged with a full-sized maze constructed by students. The competition involves both teams and individual events.


Calcusolve | Allegheny Intermediate Unit

This is a mathematical competition involving problem solving varying in content and difficulty. During the competition, ten individual and one group problem are presented to students. Extra problems are available in case of a team tie. Each problem includes clues. Initially, five minutes is allotted to solve a problem. A correct answer at this stage earns 5 points. If a clue is needed, students will have an additional 3 minutes. A correct answer at this stage earns 3 points. If the student has not turned in the answer, he will be given an additional clue plus one minute to solve the problem. A correct answer here earns 1 point. Students are permitted to use calculators.


Creative Convention | Steel Valley

This is a competition that encourages students to develop divergent and creative expression. Each creative convention includes a word game, a drawing exercise, a construction, plus a performance. Students should be able to draw quickly and clearly with style, construct usable devices from recycled materials and act, sing or dance with lots of pizzazz. Students are scored in each event on their ability to display fluent, flexible, elaborate and original thinking. Fluency relates to the number of ideas produced, flexibility to the variety of ideas produced, elaboration to the degree of detail incorporated and originality to the uniqueness of the ideas or products created.


Creative Writing | Woodland Hills

This mail-in event will focus on original student writings in the areas of poetry and prose fiction. Judges will evaluate creative writing entries based on how well they keep the reader's interest, how well they present believable characters and events, how they use words to create images and feelings, how they meet specific criteria and how they conform to the conventions of standard edited English.


E.A.E.A.O. | East Allegheny

(East Allegheny Experimental Apparatus Organization) involves three Experimental contests involving innovative and creative solutions. The first contest involves designing a mouse trap race car. The purpose of this event is to obtain the greatest horizontal displacement of a “car” using the stored energy of a mousetrap. The second event is entitled “The Bridge”. In this event students must build a bridge entirely of balsa wood and glue spanning a gap of 40cm. The idea behind the event is to see which bridge will hold the most weight. The third contest is called the Remote Control Ball and involves customizing a remote control car and using it to collect up to 50 golf balls located in a pit of 10 feet wide and 20 feet long. Students must attempt to gather the most golf balls from a cardboard box at the top of a ramp 4 feet long. The first two events are worth 20 points each and the third event is worth 50 points. This event is designed to help students understand and apply various rules of physics.


Foreign Language Competition | Gateway

This is a newly designed competition in which students are expected to have an understanding of the foreign language in a written and verbal capacity. Students of both French and Spanish will compete in a speaking (oral) questions category and a written communication test of grammar and vocabulary. The competition will show students demonstration of foreign language fluency.


Geography Bowl | Highlands

This competition measures the student's knowledge of the geography of various continents with questions related to such items as land forms, water, people, capitals, cities, ports, islands, climate, raw materials, products, languages and etc. Each year one area of the world is selected for the competition. This year the areas include North America and Canada. The competition consists of five rounds, three of which are group oral rounds where teams use a buzzer to answer the question plus two written rounds. There is also one team question involving the cooperation of all team members in answering the question.


Hometown High-Q | KDKA-TV Pittsburgh

This competition, sponsored by Giant Eagle, can be seen every Saturday at 11:00 A.M. on KDKA TV. This high school quiz show is hosted by Ken "The Quiz Master" Rice, and is an intense academic battle between three local schools. Winning schools have the opportunity to advance into the finals, where a champion is named.

Mock Trial Competition | PA Bar Association

One of the largest in the nation, the Pennsylvania Bar Association/Young Lawyers Division Mock Trial Competition gives over two-hundred-fifty high school student teams from across the state the opportunity to act as lawyers and witnesses in simulated civil trials before actual judges and panels of juries. Lawyers volunteer to assist students as team advisors, scorekeepers and regional coordinators. Each year, the winning team goes on to represent Pennsylvania in the national competition.

Mr. President | McKeesport

This is a competition that assesses a student's knowledge of the presidents of the United States of America and their accomplishments during their term(s). During each round a student can wager 5, 3 or 1 point. On a 5-point wager, the student is given a clue as to the identity of the president. On a 3-point wager, the clues increase allowing the student a greater chance of coming up with the correct answer. With a 1-point wager, several clues are provided increasing the odds of coming up with the correct response.


Murder Mystery | South Allegheny

This activity provides an opportunity for teams to gather information and use deductive reasoning and creative thinking to solve a mystery. Initially the scene and both victims and possible suspects are introduced through a short skit. The student actors and actresses pantomime the crime as the narrator reads the introduction in rhyming couplets. Actors and actresses, dressed in costumes and assuming the characters of dinner guests, then move to different tables to serve as a game master for one visiting team. Teams then visit different rooms to gather clues and evidence. Team members score points with each question asked, with different questions weighted with different point values. Teams are awarded points for creativity. The winning team is determined by being the first to correctly identify the perpetrator of the crime and by the number of points scored in the process. It is to a team's advantage to revisit rooms and to continue to ask questions for more points.

Propaganda | Woodland Hills

This competition emphasizes oral communications and research skills. The student must prepare and deliver a five minute persuasive or informative speech. The speech must be strongly supported by research and may be accompanied by a visual aid. Senior High students will also participate in an impromptu session.


Public Speaking Event | Franklin Regional

This competition emphasizes oral communications and research skills. The student must prepare and deliver a five minute persuasive or informative speech. The speech must be strongly supported by research and may be accompanied by a visual aid. Senior High students will also participate in an impromptu session.


RoboTech | Gateway

In this futuristic role-playing game, five players on a team are given five characters, each with their own unique characteristics and abilities. The players, armed with their characters, an assortment of high tech weapons and vehicles (known as cyclones or mecha), and especially their wit, must complete a mission under the supervision of a game master. A game master is a person (not a player) who describes the situations the team encounters during the mission. Some of the encounters that a team may face include puzzles, combat, other characters, traps and etc. Winners will be selected based on the highest number of points attained. Points are accumulated by performing certain appropriate actions throughout the mission creativity bonus points and behavioral penalties may be given at the game master's discretion. Logic and creativity are the player's main tools to success.


Science Bowl | N/A

Teams of students compete in events that require knowledge of anatomy, astronomy, biology, chemistry, computer science, geology, physics and zoology. In the Quick Recall Written Round, each student answers multiple-choice questions to earn points for the team. In the Quick Recall Oral Rounds, two teams compete head to head in the quiz bowl format. In the Picture This segment with its Pictionary/Win, Lose, or Draw format, one team member sketches a science term while the remaining members attempt to identify the concept.


World Events | Allegheny Valley

This is a competition testing a student's knowledge of current events as well as information related to a thematic period of time. The current event questions are taken from events from the past year The thematic part of the competition includes ten topics from the period as the 1960’s. Categories include famous People, History, Technology, Space Exploration, Inventions, Music, Politics, Social Culture, Protests and Assassinations. During the thematic rounds, students must also demonstrate an ability to document their answer within two minutes for which they receive an additional four points. During each period the moderator will announce the topic of the question to be read. After the question is read, each player writes a wager of 2, 4 or 6 points on their wager/answer sheet. A player may abstain from answering, but no more than twice per round. The total cumulative score for all five members of the team will determine the order of finish.