Frequently Asked Questions
When will school IT-Club registration be over? We will be taking registrations through October 1, 2008.
How many students are needed to form an IT-Club? A minimum of three.
How many students are needed to form an IT-Olympics team? A minimum of three and a maximum of ten.
How often do IT-Clubs meet? This is up to the advisor and the club. Some meet weekly, others meet every other week.
Is there a cost to participate? The only cost is travel to Ames and lodging during the IT-Olympics.
Do I have to be a certified teacher to be an advisor? No, you only need to be a person who is interested in helping students learn and have fun with IT.
How do I register an IT-Club? Go to the Get Involved page and register the IT-Club. Schools must be registered by October 1, 2008. Students need to be registered to participate in IT-Adventures by the same date. In January, team signup will begin for IT-Olympics.
When will we be receving eductional materials? Education materials will be available on the web site and software will be shipping in the middle of September.
What kind of equipment will we need? This year the IT-Adventures program will not ship computers. All IT-Clubs will need to acquire computers to be used for their practice labs. These computers DO NOT need to be new! Used computers from a local company will work. We have provided the base computer specifications needed to run the software we provide.
What software will we get? You will receive 4 Windows XP licenses and the installation CD to install on your used computers, as well as several CDs of open source software that can be installed on them.
What equipment will we get? There will be some specialized equipment provided based upon the content areas the IT-Club choses to study.
For new IT-Clubs interested in robotics a Lego Mindstorms NXT base education kit, the education resource kit and the Lego Mindstorms NXT software. The IT-Club will also receive one copy of the book "Building Robots with Lego Mindstorms NXT", as well as each of the DVDs "Robotics Engineering Vol. 1" and "Robotics Engineering Vol. 2."
For new IT-Clubs interested in game design, a "Learning to Program with Alice" book and the Alice software are provided.
For new IT-Clubs interested in cyber defense, instructional DVDs and open source software will be provided. Additionally, if the IT-Club has a problem locating a used hub and patch cables, they can request a set.
How many teams can one student compete on in IT-Olympics? Students may learn about all three venues during the year. However, they may only compete in one venue and on one team during the IT-Olympics.
When will we get the details about the challenges in each of the venues for IT-Olympics? The primary challenges will be available after the first of January 2009. However, remember during IT-Olympics there are real-time competition challenges. The details of these challenges are only known at the time the challenge is made.
What about hotel rooms for IT-Olympics? As we get closer to the IT-Olympics competition we will post a list of hotels that have given us a discount rate. Please note the dates that reservation need to be made at each hotel to take advantage of the quoted rate. You will need to mention IT-Adventures to get the rate.
What kinds of projects work for a community service project? Community service projects can be as simple as holding community education workshops in the high school computer labs on topics such as protecting yourself from phishing emails or viruses to more complex projects such as helping a local non-profit agency with an IT project. The definition of community service project has been purposely left openended so that teams can be as creative as they wish. Community service projects are presented and judged at the IT-Olympics. The community service score contributes to a team's overall score in the competition.
How many community service projects are needed for IT-Olympics? If an IT-Club wants to have teams in each of the IT-Olympics areas, the club can do only one community service project but submit it for each venue.
What happened to the high school cyber defense competition? The former high school cyber defense competition that was held in the spring of each year is now part of the IT-Olympics.
