Purple Comet Math Meet

The Purple Comet! Math Meet is a free, annual, international, online, team, mathematics competition designed for middle and high school students that has been held every year since 2003. Teams of from one to six students compete by submitting solutions to a list of mathematics problems. There is a ten-day window during which teams may compete choosing a start time most convenient for them. The problems range in difficulty from fairly easy to extremely challenging. In 2022 over 12,000 students competed on over 3998 teams from 62 countries.

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There are two levels of competition:

• the middle school contest consists of 20 problems to be completed in 60 minutes;
• the high school contest consists of 30 problems to be completed in 90 minutes.

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There are four categories of teams:

• teams whose members all attend the same large school;
• teams whose members all attend the same small school;
• teams whose members attend more than one school or are home schooled;
• teams with no restrictions that do not compete for awards.

• Teams can consist of as few as 1 and as many as 6 students
• All competitive middle school team members must be students who have not yet completed the eighth grade (or local equivalent), and who are under the age of 16 as of the date of the competition.
• All competitive high school team members must be students who have not yet graduated from secondary school (or local equivalent), and who are under the age of 20 as of the date of the competition.
• Competitive teams may register in the large school category, the small school category, or the mixed team category. All students from a large school team or a small school team must be enrolled as students in the same school. The school size should be determined from the size of the student population from which potential team members have been drawn. Some schools are spread out over a campus comprising several buildings. If a team could be comprised of students from across the entire campus, then the entire campus should be considered when calculating the school size. Mixed teams are designed for home schooled students, students who all attend the same regional mathematics club, or some other non-school organization. All the students from a single mixed team must have residences within 150 miles (240 kilometers) of each other. Some exceptions to this distance rule may be made for some teams in special cases at the discretion of the contest coordinator, but permission must be obtained before that team begins the competition. Send inquiries to info@purplecomet.org.
• High schools qualify as small if they have no more than 1200 students. Middle schools qualify as small if they have no more than 400 students.
• No student may participate on more than one middle school team or one high school team, although a student eligible for the middle school level may compete both on one middle school team and on one high school team.
• A school may enter as many teams as they like. Each team is required to have access to its own computer with an Internet connection. If two teams at the same school need to share a computer, then the two teams are required to compete at different times with one team completing the entire competition before the other team starts.
• Team members need not all be from the same school. Mixed school teams are designed for teams made up of students who do not attend the same school such as home schooled students, members of an area mathematics club, or groups of friends.
• Each team must have an adult supervisor (age 21 year or older) who is able to monitor the team to ensure that competition rules are being followed. An adult supervisor may supervise more than one team.
• Teams may enter either as a middle school team or a high school team. The competition problems for middle school teams will be fewer in number and of a lower degree of difficulty than those for high school teams.

• May 1st, 2025

• Supervisors must register at the contest website by clicking on the SUPERVISOR LOGIN link.
• Supervisors may register teams for the competition during the team registration period which begins February 1 and continues through the end of the competition.