POM Rules 2025
NEW FOR 2025: Video Submissions
This year, we are switching to video solutions for POM. Participants will submit a short video explaining their solution.
- Videos must be at most 2.5 minutes long for 5pt/10pt problems, and at most 6 minutes long for projects.
- Participants must narrate their solutions; you do not need to show your face. Acceptable formats include:
- Screensharing a PowerPoint/slides presentation and narrating.
- Screensharing a drawing app (e.g., Microsoft Paint) and narrating.
- Recording themselves at a whiteboard, paper, or easel and narrating (you can write the contents of the whiteboard/paper/easel in advance).
- Speaking directly to the camera.
- Videos must be submitted as links (uploaded to Google Drive, Youtube, Dropbox, etc.). If you do not cover everything you want in the video, you may submit extra files in the PDF format.
- For computer science problems, you may be asked to submit code along with a video explaining your submission. The only allowed languages are Python-3 and Java, so please upload a .py or .java file for these problems.
Upload the video to your Google Drive and make it accessible to "Anyone with the link":
1. In Google Drive, double-click the video file to open it.
2. Click the "Share" button in the upper-right corner; a small window will appear.
3. Under General access, change the setting from "Restricted" to "Anyone with the link".
4. Click Done
1. Upload the video to your YouTube account.
2. After uploading, under Visibility, select Unlisted (Anyone with the link can view).
in the YouTube app on mobile:
If you have already uploaded the video and forgot to change the visibility, you can do the following:
1. Go to https://studio.youtube.com/ and open the Content section on desktop, or tap Edit video on mobile
2. Under Visibility, change the setting from Private to Unlisted.
POM Contest Rules
- You can join the competition at any time.
- While solving problems or projects, you may consult the web, books and other published literature, and may receive help from other people who are not participating in the contest. You must clearly indicate any help you received or sources you consulted in your submissions. Collaboration with other participants (including siblings!) is not allowed.
- POM is about learning and getting excited about STEM, not scoring the most points. Using LLMs or AI to solve problems for you is not allowed – submissions based on LLM outputs will be flagged and receive no credit, and repeated misuse may affect SigmaCamp admission. Remember, the main person you cheat is yourself. However, you may use the internet or LLMs for research and learning, such as reviewing concepts or summarizing scientific papers.
- You may submit any number of problems or projects, but only your top six scores each month will count, with a maximum of 45 points per month.
- Problems will be posted on the 15th day of each month. We expect your solutions by the 10th day of the next month. Solutions must be uploaded through the website form.
- On the 11th day of the next month, we will be posting hints for some of the problems. We will continue accepting solutions until 14th day of the month. Solutions submitted between days 10 and 14 will only receive 60% of the score. Several days after submissions close, we will release the official solutions for the problems.
- All submitted solutions will be graded; you will be able to see your score and graders' comments in your account. If you disagree with the graders' decisions you can submit an appeal via an email pom@sigmacamp.org, and your solution will get a second round of consideration.
If you have any questions, you can contact the POM Committee by emailing pom@sigmacamp.org.