Middle School FAQ

NERMSSB (Northeast Regional Middle School Science Bowl) is a buzzer-style competition for teams of middle school students from across New England to see who can answer science and math questions the quickest. The top three teams will receive individual medals and a trophy, while the winner will receive an all-expenses paid trip to the National Science Bowl competition in April! See our official Regional listing here. For more information on Science Bowl, see this video explaining the rules

This year's tournament will be held on Saturday, February 22nd, 2025 at MIT's main campus in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Check-in for teams will start at 8 AM, while the competition will begin at 9 AM. We expect the competition to last until 5-6 PM. 

Any school in Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Maine, and Vermont with 6th, 7th, and 8th grade students can send a team to our competition!

We collect a small fee from teams to fund our tournaments. We provide a full fee waiver to any schools that meet at least one of the following criterion:

• More than 75% of the students in the school qualify for free or reduced lunch.

• More than 75% of the students in the school identify as racially or ethnically underrepresented populations in STEM (i.e. Black, Hispanic, Latinx/e, Indigenous)

• More than 50% of the students you would like to bring to compete would be the first in their family to go to college (first generation)

Please reach out to us if you have any concerns about costs from our fee and travel.

The questions and study guides provided on our Resources page are reflective of the difficulty found in the Regional tournament.

Our tournament has two stages for competing teams to decide placements:

Morning Round Robin

All competing teams are sorted into groups, and spend the morning playing each team in their group. The best teams in each group will qualify for the afternoon elimination rounds and compete for first place at the 2025 NERMSSB. Teams that are eliminated from the Round Robin will qualify for the wildcard tournament.

 Afternoon Elimination Rounds

Teams that qualify for the elimination rounds will be seeded based on their performance in the morning, and compete in a double-elimination style bracket until a winner has been decided.  

Wildcard Tournament

We will be running our first ever wildcard tournament at the 2025 NERMSSB! All teams that are eliminated in the morning round robin will qualify to compete. Rounds will take place in the afternoon, concurrently with the official elimination rounds. The winning team will receive individual medals and a special trophy to mark their achievement!

We follow the official National Science Bowl rule book. This means a maximum of four students will compete at one time, along with at most one substitute player. Teams must have at least 4 players to qualify for the National Science Bowl competition, and at least 3 players to compete at our tournament. Since NERMSSB is an official Regional tournament, each match will have have 8-minute halves. 

We are currently limited to accepting 24 teams, although we'll try to expand that number if enough schools register. We will accept at most 3 teams per school. This year, we are limiting at most 2 teams per school to qualify for the official elimination rounds.

No! We encourage all teams to sign up for our tournaments. However, we do expect that you are familiar with the official Science Bowl rules, and we hope that you will take the time to prepare for our competition to make it a more rewarding experience.

There will be an afternoon wildcard tournament for those eliminated in the morning Round Robin. In the past, teams that are eliminated have taken the time to spectate afternoon matches or explore MIT's vast historical campus.

Lunch and refreshments will be provided to all competitors!

Teams often travel to MIT by driving, taking the Amtrak to Back Bay/South Station, or utilizing Boston's Red Line and the several bus lines that run through our campus. For more information, check out  web.mit.edu/visitmit/. On campus, feel free to refer to the official MIT online interactive map (whereis.mit.edu) to navigate the campus.