The Challenge is a program encompassing the school year in which teams of students complete science projects using high-performance supercomputers. Each team of one to five students and a sponsoring teacher defines and works on a single computational project of its own choosing. Throughout the program, help and support are given to the teams by their project advisors and the Challenge organizers and sponsors. The Challenge is open to all interested students in grades 9 through 12 on a nonselective basis. The program has no grade point, class enrollment or computer experience prerequisites.
Participants come from public, private, parochial and home-based schools in all areas of New Mexico.
The important requirement for participating is a real desire to learn about science and computing. Those teams who make significant progress on their projects can enter them in the competition for awards of savings bonds and scholarships for the individuals and computer equipment for the school. The Challenge is offered at minimal cost to the participants or the school district. It is sponsored by a partnership of federal laboratories, universities, businesses, and New Mexico Technet. They provide food and lodging for the kickoff conference during which students and teachers are shown how to use supercomputers, learn programming languages, how to analyze data, write reports and much more.