Toshiba ExploraVision 2026-27: Team Registration and the January 27 Deadline Explained
Published · Contest profile · Science · Grades K–12
ExploraVision, now in its 35th year and run by Toshiba with the National Science Teaching Association, asks something no other major K–12 science competition asks. It does not want an experiment. It wants students to identify a real-world problem, research the scientific principles and current technologies behind it, and then design a solution that could plausibly exist ten or more years from now.
That single design choice changes who does well, and it is the thing to understand before a team registers.
The deadline, and why to check it directly
For the 2026–27 cycle, registration is open until January 27, 2027. Projects are submitted online by the team's coach.
One practical caution: published deadline dates for this competition have differed between sources during the changeover between cycles, and prior-year dates circulate well into the new season. Confirm the current cycle's date at exploravision.org before building a schedule around it, and treat any date carried over from a previous year with suspicion.
The four divisions
Teams compete in one of four levels:
- Primary — grades K–3
- Upper Elementary — grades 4–6
- Middle Level — grades 7–9
- High School — grades 10–12
The rule that catches teams out: a team competes in the band of its oldest student. A single ninth-grader added to a group of seventh-graders is still Middle Level, but a single tenth-grader moves the whole team into High School. That is a real strategic consideration when assembling a cross-grade team, and it should be settled before anyone starts researching.
Team composition and eligibility
Teams are two to four students, with a teacher or coach and an optional mentor. Each student may submit only one project per year.
Students must be United States or Canadian citizens, no older than 21, and enrolled full-time in an accredited public, private, or home school. There is a further rule worth flagging for schools that have done well before: previous regional or national finalists may compete again only with entirely new teams. A successful team cannot return intact.
Prizes
At the national level, first-place team members each choose between a $10,000 Series EE Savings Bond at maturity, $5,000 in cash, or $5,000 into a 529 education plan. Second-place team members choose between a $5,000 bond at maturity, $2,500 cash, or $2,500 into a 529.
Regional winners receive a banner for the school and technology prizes for each team member. Every participating team receives a digital certificate, an entry gift, and judge feedback — which for a first-time team is often the most valuable part, because it is specific and it comes from outside the school.
What actually distinguishes strong entries
The ten-year horizon is a discipline, not a licence for speculation. The entries that do well are anchored on both ends: they demonstrate command of the current technology and the science underneath it, and then extrapolate from it in steps a judge can follow. An entry that opens with the future device and works backwards tends to read as a description rather than a projection.
Because the research component is explicit in the brief, the bibliography carries real weight. A team that has read actual literature on the current state of its technology — rather than general-audience coverage of it — separates itself quickly.
The problem-selection step is where most teams win or lose before writing anything. A problem narrow enough to research properly at the team's grade level, and real enough that current technology genuinely falls short of solving it, is doing most of the work. Broad problems — climate change, disease, hunger — produce entries that cannot demonstrate depth in any of it.
A workable autumn timeline
- September — assemble the team, settle the grade band, confirm the coach.
- October — problem selection and a first pass on current technology. Change problems now if the research is thin; it is far more costly later.
- November — the substantive research, and the bibliography.
- December — the future design, built out from the research rather than imagined ahead of it.
- Early January — drafting, revision, and coach review, finishing well before the January 27 date rather than against it.
The competition is unusually accessible — four grade bands starting at kindergarten, small teams, no laboratory requirement, and feedback for everyone who enters. What it demands in exchange is that students do the reading before they do the imagining.