Lead. Build. eXplore.

LBX is a global science and innovation competition for middle school and high school students. Participants lead an original question, build a working artefact, and explore the problem further than a school assignment usually allows. Each season ends with regional showcases in Singapore, Hong Kong, London and New York, then a Global Final.

Apply for the 2026 Season → How the competition works

The Field

Where LBX sits next to Regeneron ISEF, Conrad Challenge, FIRST and other programmes — and why it is not an ISEF affiliate.

Verify a Certificate

Look up an award in the public registry, or open the signed-certificate verifier.

FAQ

Age, teams, guardian consent, travel, AI tools, and what happens on showcase day.

The Three Pillars

  • Lead

    Students set the direction. We ask them to name a problem worth their time, say why it matters, and take ownership of the path. Mentors guide; students decide.

  • Build

    Ideas become things. Every entry includes a working artefact — a prototype, an app, a dataset, a study, or a designed intervention — plus documentation a stranger could follow.

  • eXplore

    The X is deliberate. Good projects open more questions than they close. We reward curiosity, honest failure, and the courage to follow a problem off the syllabus.

Competition Tracks

  • Applied Sciences

    Physics, chemistry, biology and earth sciences. Original investigations with reproducible methods and clear data analysis.

  • Engineering & Robotics

    Hardware, mechanical and electrical systems, embedded software. Working prototypes that solve a defined problem.

  • Computer Science & AI

    Algorithms, applications, machine learning and computational research. Code repositories must be public and well documented.

  • Sustainability & Climate

    Energy, water, biodiversity, materials or climate adaptation, with credible measurement of impact.

  • Social Innovation

    Public health, accessibility, education and civic technology. Projects tested with a real community of users.

  • Open Exploration

    Work that does not fit a box: art–science crossovers, new instruments, philosophical experiments. Judged on rigor and originality.

Start here

  • Read the pedagogy

    The About page explains why Lead, Build and eXplore are taught as a sequence, not as three slogans. About LBX.

  • See a season

    Registration, two checkpoints, four regional showcases and a Global Final in New York in July 2027. 2026 schedule.

  • Build the project

    A practical guide to question, method, evidence, prototype, poster and oral defence. Prepare.

What a season actually feels like

The homepage slogans are short on purpose. The work is not. Between September and July a student will write a question they can defend, throw away a first method, rebuild a prototype that failed in public in February, print a poster that is mostly white space, and stand in a room in Singapore, Hong Kong, London or New York while two strangers ask what they would do with another month. That sequence is the product. Awards are a by-product.

LBX is built for middle school and high school together, because the habit of owning a question does not start at sixteen. Junior Division is not a simplified Senior Division. It is the same four-criterion rubric read against age. A twelve-year-old who designed their own counting method will outrank a fourteen-year-old who executed an adult’s protocol without changing a step. That is written on the competition page so that nobody discovers it on showcase day.

If you are a parent reading this on a phone, the useful links are Apply (consent and fees), Prepare (how the project is built), Venues (what the two days look like), and Verify (how a certificate can be checked later). If you are a student, start with the question, not with the track. Tracks are filing cabinets. Questions are the work.

We are not an ISEF affiliate, not a FIRST qualifying event, and not a Conrad preliminary. The Field page exists so that sentence is impossible to miss. Students may still enter those programmes with the same idea if each report tells the truth about dates and authorship.

Notes for teachers who will not be in the judging slot

The most useful thing a teacher can do for an LBX student is to protect time. A question that is owned by the student still needs a bench, a quiet hour, and a person who will say “that measurement is not a measurement yet.” You do not need to become a second mentor. You do need to refuse to write the method. If a parent asks you to “just make it look finished,” send them the Prepare page. Finished-looking work that cannot run in the room loses on Build, and the student will feel that loss in public.

If you are bringing a cohort, put the proposal and progress dates on the school calendar as if they were internal exams. Collect consent as individual forms, not as a class spreadsheet. Book the quiet room for oral-defence practice in April, not the week of the flight. Tell us about access needs early, while we can still change a room, not the morning of judging. You are welcome on the public day. You are not in the closed session. That boundary keeps the defence the student’s.

We will not write you a letter that claims ISEF affiliation, university credit, or a guaranteed admissions outcome. We will confirm that a named student registered, submitted, presented, or received an award, and we will point a third party at the verify page. That is the honest letter. If a counsellor needs more, they need a different programme.