We know that school holidays vary across the nations and even within them, but we have tried to arrange things so that most half terms cross the next two weeks. That should mean that most of you are in school for the release of the first competition round in the Challenge, which we will publish at 3pm on Thursday November 7th.
From then on your scores count towards the final competition leaderboard and will be used in part to determine the winners and the allocation of tickets to the prize giving.
Just as with rounds 1-3 we will award speed points for part B entries, but remember that accuracy is always more important than speed so if you make a mistake and correct it you will be better off than if you don’t.
Also, and this is VERY IMPORTANT, for rounds 4-10 the speed points are awarded in time bands. In terms of points, there is no advantage to submitting at the beginning of a time band rather than at the end of the same band. When making our final decisions about prizes we reserve the right to take into account the actual speed of submission for round 10 (as opposed to just the speed points), but that is only one of the factors the prize committee will use to select the winners. We will ask potential winners to send us an account of how they cracked Challenge 10 and that will play a role in the prize deliberations. The committee will be looking for ingenuity and skill to supplement the speed and accuracy!
Anyway, enjoy Challenge 3 and then have a great rest before Challenge 4 in November. And do spread the word about the competition, it is not too late for others to sign up!