FAQ

Below are Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) regarding the ThinkQuest NYC Challenge.
The FAQs are being updated and will be added shortly.

Questions about the program.

Questions about the rules.

Questions about technical issues.

Questions about the program

Q. What is ThinkQuest New York City?

A. ThinkQuest New York City is an educational program which challenges the students and teachers of New York City to build the best educational Web sites available on the Internet. A team of one to two coaches and two to six students collaborate to create a Web site. In the spring the web server accounts where you upload your project will be closed and evaluated. The winners will receive awards.

Q. Are there any costs associated with participation in ThinkQuest
New York City?
A. None at all! ThinkQuest New York City is free.

Q. Where do I register?
A link to the registration form will be available as soon as possible.


Q. What do Coaches need to do about Parental Permission for team members?
A. ThinkQuest New York City requires that coaches follow the parental permission policy of their school or organization. DO NOT SEND parental permission forms to ThinkQuest New York City. A coach should follow the stated policy of their school and when registering with ThinkQuest New York City simply acknowledge that they have the required permission for each team member by checking the appropriate check box on the registration form. If your school or organization does not have a policy we offer this description of the program to help coaches create a parental permission forms. The possible ways teams are formed and work make it impossible for us to have a single parental permission form for all cases.

Q. How can I create a Web site?

A. It’s easier than you probably think. First, make the problem as simple as possible. A Web site is a collection of related Web pages. So your question is really “How do I make a Web page?”. A web page is simply a text file written with some extra “tags” to tell the browser how to display the information. These “tags” are the basis of HTML, the language all web browsers speak. You can use a number of software programs to create HTML formatted text files. Most word processors will export or “save as” HTML. There are more complicated programs like DreamWeaver® or Adobe GoLive® or you can write the HTML by hand in Textpad. Microsoft Word ® will save as HTML too.

Once you have an HTML page you need to put it on a Web server so the rest of the world can look at it. Remember that images you put link to your Web page need to be uploaded as well.

Also start simple, do not try and use every cool technology available in your first web page. Try to get a simple page with text to be viewable from the server. Once you accomplish this you can start to look for JavaScript to make your page more interactive, images to add color and fun to your page. Eventually you will have Flash ® animations running around your pages.

We recommend looking through our tutorials and resources to answer many questions. Otherwise Google is a great search engine for finding answers and instruction on Web development.

Q. Where can I get a clean copy of the ThinkQuest New York City Logo?

The ThinkQuest New York City logo can be found here with instructions on downloading and even the code to add it to your web site.

Q. Can I upload to my account after the judging is finished?
This information will be provided shortly.

Q. Is there a penalty for uploading late?

There is a 5 point penalty for everyday the site is re-opened after the uploading deadline. In order to have your account reopened you must make a request through the helpdesk and include your team id.

Questions about the rules

Q. Where can I find the rules?

A. The rules are available here.

Q. How many students can be on a team?
A. A team may have up to six students.

Q. How many coaches can a team have?
A. A team may have up to two coaches.

Q. Who can participate?
A. A team must have a coach who is a teacher or educator in the New York City area as well as at least two and no more than six students.

Q. Can we make a Web site about anything?
A. Pretty much, the only constraint is that it has to be educational. Create your site to teach other students and adults about whatever interests you. If you cannot come up with anything take a look at what past participants have created in the ThinkQuest New York City Library for ideas and ask your coach or another teacher.

Q.If a team’s website does not win an award this year can they revise and
expand their website and resubmit the following year?
Teams can resubmit there web sites in the following year, provided that
the team is generally in tact. If a member of the team has left the team,
the web site “Attribution” section must include the contributions of that team
member as if they were any other author of material.

Questions about technical issues

Q. When do we get web server accounts?
A. This information will be provided shortly.

Q. How do I upload?
A. We recommend using File Transfer Protocol (FTP) enabled clients to transfer your Web site to the ThinkQuest New York city servers. Detailed instructions will be posted soon.

Q. Why do I get a list of files when I try to look at my website with a browser?
A. The web server will look for a file named “index.html” or “index.htm” when no filename is given. The first page, your “Home Page” should be named “index.html”. If you have built your site and have many links to the “Home Page” but with a name other than “index.html” you can copy your “Home Page” file and rename it “index.html”. This is a quick fix and we recommend fixing the links but in a pinch it will work.

Q. Why do some or all of my images appear broken?
A. Most likely the HTML page has the wrong filename or is looking the wrong place for the file. This happens when you keep you images in a directory or folder other than where the HTML page lives and then you do not upload the directories correctly. A good practice is to keep the images for a web page in the same directory, or folder, where the HTML page lives.

Q. What does a good filename look like?
A. The best practice is to only use letters, numbers and underscores (”_”) only. Do not allow “whitespaces” in filenames. The ThinkQuest New york City servers run Linux, a Unix variant, and deals with “whitespaces” differently than Windows operating systems. We suggest you replace spaces with underscores so you do not encounter problems after uploading. For example, if you have a file names “my homepage.html” rename the file “my_homepage.html”. This will allow you to easily read the filename while satisfying all operating systems requirements for a functional website.

Q. What do I do when I have searched the Web and cannot find an answer?
A. Submit your question to the ThinkQuest New York City and we will do everything within our power to get you a solution. Always include your Team ID and all the relevant information related to your issue to help us answer as quickly as possible.

Q. Can I use any picture or animation I find on the Internet in my Web site?
A. No, if you do not create the image, animation, text or any other work you must have permission and cite the original author or creator. To use someone else’s work is plagiarism and against the rules and illegal. Your team can be disqualified if you do not get written permission and cite your sources. The American Psychological Association Style Guide is an excellent resource to learn how to cite sources correctly. More information can be found in the Duke University Library Web site and the OhioLINK Library.

Q. Can I use ASP scripts in my Web site?
A. No, ASP is not supported.

Q. Why can I not log in?
A. There are many possible resolutions to this question.
#1 Have you registered for a ThinkQuest New York City team and received and email with a Team ID and password? If not you should do that first.

#2 Are you entering the Team ID and password exactly as they appear in the email. They are both case sensitive, which means you must enter capital letters as capital letters and lower case letters as lower case letters.
#3 If you are trying to log into the ThinkQuest New York City web site you must have “cookies” enabled in your browser. These are usually on by default.
#4 If you are doing everything correctly (see 1 through 3) and still cannot get in there may be a problem between your computer and the ThinkQuest New York City server like a proxy server and/or firewall that is not allowing cookies through. You can double check if this is the case by trying to log in from a computer outside your network. You will have to contact the person who is in charge of your network if this is the case.
#5 When all else fails contact the TQNYC HelpDesk and include as much information about your computer, browser and Internet connection as possible and we will try to help you through it.

Q. Can we use PHP?
No, PHP is not supported on the server.

Q. Can we use MySQL?
No, MySQL is not supported on the server.

Q. How much space do I get for my team’s project?
A. This information will be available shortly.

Q. What should I know if I am using FrontPage to create my web pages?
A. There are a few issues to consider while using FrontPage. Microsoft developed this software to be an all-in-one web-publishing tool. There are a lot of features within FrontPage that will not function on the ThinkQuest server such as hit counters, search forms, confirmation fields, ActiveX controls and anything under the Insert menu>Component submenu.

An easy way to turn off features you should not use can be turned off by going to the toolbar and selecting “Tools” and then “Page Options”. This should open a menu that has a tab labeled “Compatibility”. Click that table and select “Both Internet Explorer and Navigator”. Under the “Servers” drop down select “Apache” and uncheck the checkbox labeled “Enable with Micorosft FrontPage Server Extensions”. By selecting these options FrontPage will generate web pages that will conform to the TQNYC server and most browsers that will be viewing your site.