2026 Season Schedule

The LBX season runs across the academic year 2026–27. Dates below are the public milestones that apply in every hub. Orientation sessions, mentor meetings and exact showcase rooms are confirmed in the welcome email after registration.

Apply for the 2026 Season → Prepare a project

Milestone	Date	What happens
Registration opens	15 September 2026	Choose hub, division and track. Orientation begins as soon as a student is accepted.
Registration closes	31 October 2026	Late forms are reviewed case by case. Mentor matching is not guaranteed after this date.
Proposal checkpoint	30 November 2026	Two-page proposal due. Written mentor feedback within two weeks. Weak proposals are revised, not rejected.
Progress checkpoint	28 February 2027	Artefact draft, four-minute video, note on what changed. Most projects pivot here.
Final submission	30 April 2027	Report, artefact, poster, presentation video, contribution statement, AI disclosure.
Singapore showcase	22–23 May 2027	Asia–Pacific hub. Judging day then public demonstration day in the one-north precinct.
Hong Kong showcase	29–30 May 2027	Greater China hub. Judging plus a maker session for hardware.
London showcase	5–6 June 2027	Europe, Middle East and Africa hub. Presentations, posters and a public lecture series.
New York showcase	12–13 June 2027	Americas hub. Closed judging, public exhibition, evening reception.
Global Final	10–12 July 2027 · New York	Top entries from every region. Travel grants available. Host city rotates each season.
Certificates published	within 48 hours of each event	Award IDs appear in the registry. Signed files, if issued, verify at cert/verify.html.

Phase 1 — Registration

Opening on 15 September 2026 is not a ceremony; it is the day the form goes live. Earlier registration means an earlier mentor and a longer working period before 30 November. Schools that want to enrol a cohort should write to schools@lbx.org in September so orientation can be run as a workshop rather than as twelve separate calls.

Phase 2 — Proposal

The proposal is the Lead checkpoint. Students who still do not have a question by mid November should use office hours; the academic committee would rather see a narrow question on time than a grand one a week late. Extensions of up to seven days are granted for documented illness or school-exam collision.

Phase 3 — Progress

February is when Build becomes visible. A video of a thing that almost works is more useful than slides of a thing that might work. Mentors are asked not to “rescue” a project in this window; their job is to make the next experiment obvious.

Phase 4 — Final and showcases

April 30 is a hard stop for the written package so judges can read before they fly. Showcase dates do not move for individual teams. If a visa or medical issue makes travel impossible, the hub director can authorise a recorded defence plus a live video question session; this is exceptional, not a parallel track.

Between the dates

Students meet their mentor every two to three weeks, share work in a regional cohort, and may book office hours on statistics, ethics, hardware sourcing and writing. Most of LBX happens in those weeks, not on showcase day. Parents are welcome on the public day at each hub; they are not copied on mentor notes unless the student is under 16 and a guardian has asked to be on the pastoral list.

A working calendar between the public dates

September: register, complete orientation, meet the mentor, write three candidate questions and kill two of them. October: pick the surviving question, list the first measurement, request ethics notes if people or animals are involved. November: freeze a two-page proposal; if it is late because of exams, ask for the seven-day extension in writing. December and January: build badly and on purpose. The progress checkpoint in February is not a dress rehearsal of May; it is a film of a thing that almost works.

March: stop adding features. Write the limitations section while the failures are fresh. April: freeze the artefact a week before 30 April so the report describes the thing you will actually demonstrate, not the thing you meant to finish on the plane. May and June: showcase in your hub. July: Global Final in New York if invited. August: read the written feedback. That letter is part of the pedagogy; it is not a consolation prize.

Schools running a cohort should put the two checkpoints on the internal calendar as hard dates, the way they would put an exam. Students who treat LBX as a May sprint usually arrive with slides and a story. Students who treat November and February as real have something that runs in the room. The difference is visible from the back row.

When dates collide with exams

They will. November proposal week sits on top of many school exam calendars. Ask for the seven-day extension as soon as you know, not the night of the 30th. February’s progress checkpoint collides with other competitions; do not skip it to attend a fair that will not read your trail. April 30 is not extendable except for documented medical or visa emergencies, because judges must read before they travel. Showcase dates do not move for a school play. The Global Final in New York, 10–12 July 2027, is after most academic years end on purpose.

Put the four regional weekends in the family calendar now: Singapore 22–23 May, Hong Kong 29–30 May, London 5–6 June, New York 12–13 June 2027. If you are a cross-hub team, you already chose one of those weekends at registration. Book refundable travel when the welcome mail confirms the building, not before; rooms can shift by a few streets, not by a city.