Frequently Asked Questions

All players on a team will compete at once with no substitutions. Teams have a minimum of three and a maximum of five total players. Exceptions may be allowed for teams with two players, but we will not accept requests to have a sixth player.

It is not necessary for teams to have a coach during competition, but coaches may spectate games if they wish to. However, teams may be required to provide a coach (a school teacher, parent, or another trusted adult) in order to award prize money.

Yes! Our tournaments are open to any high school or equivalent institution in the world; see our rules for details on eligibility. We’ve had schools compete from India and Australia and hope to have more countries represented in the future.

The competition’s difficulty will be comparable to other competitions that have been held in the past, including the National Science Bowl®. Ignis is similar to the difficulty of NSB’s regional competitions, while Olympus is approximately the same difficulty as NSB’s national finals. You can see question difficulty for yourself by looking through past question packets.

$0! Prometheus is covering all tournament costs so competitors don’t have to.

Prometheus has received grants from Open Philanthropy and the Future Fund. Our tournaments in the 2023-24 season will use residual funds from these grants as well as a separate grant from an individual private donor.

Virtual competitions will primarily be on Zoom with a custom website for buzzing (see “How will buzzing work virtually?”), and updates will be sent over both Discord and email.

We’ll be using our own custom-built site to mimic typical buzzer systems, similar to buzzin.live and COBA. This system takes care of buzzing, scoring, and timing so players have all the information they need on one page. Before the tournament, each team will receive a link to create accounts within the system so that on the day of the tournament, they will be assigned a virtual room to buzz in.

See our Honor Code for details. If substantial evidence of cheating is found, the team in question will be blacklisted from all future Prometheus competitions and our findings will be shared with the National Science Bowl®, along with various other consequences. We expect that teams will find it in their best interest to maintain a fair competitive environment.

Longtermism is generally a much broader topic, with ideas extending from science to philosophy and morality. X-risk focuses on specific important causes without delving into the associated beliefs and philosophy.