What ages/grades may participate?

Age and grade requirements for the Challenge Experience

Students from pre-K through university level participate in the
Destination Imagination Challenge Program. The following are the
age/grade requirements to participate in the 2025-26 Destination
Imagination Challenge Experience and/or the 2025 Team Film Challenge:

RISING STARS ®	Designed for Preschool through 2nd grade
ELEMENTARY LEVEL	Kindergarten-5th Grade or no student born before June 15, 2014
MIDDLE LEVEL	6th-8th Grade or no student born before June 15, 2011
SECONDARY LEVEL	9th-12th Grade or no student born before June 15, 2007
UNIVERSITY LEVEL	ALL members of University Level teams must be: currently enrolled, full-time students from a college, university, trade or technical school, or other post-secondary education center, OR currently enrolled, part-time students from a college, university, trade or technical school, or other post-secondary education center who are NOT also attending high school, OR in the military, OR college-bound high school seniors who are currently taking accredited courses offered by a college or university that will qualify for course credit when entering higher education (college, university, trade school, military). Advanced Placement courses do not qualify as accredited courses offered by a college or university.

You can view equivalent grade levels for teams outside the United States on page 14 of our Rules of the Road.

Teams are able to include team members from differing ages/grade levels, but the team's Level at competition is determined by the age/grade of the eldest member. For example, if a team is composed of 6 fifth graders and 1 sixth grader, they would compete at the Middle Level.