Terms of use

Version 1.0 (RUDO-WC-TERMS-1.0) · effective 2026-11-03

1. Agreement

These Terms apply to the RUDO™ Weather Challenge website and service, operated by LIGHT HOPE as part of RUDO™ Learning Hub. By creating a family you accept these Terms, the Privacy notice and the Rules v1.1, which form part of these Terms.

2. Who may create a family

Only an adult aged 18 or older may create a family, and only if they are the parent or legal guardian of every child they add, or if the family is for themselves in the 18+ Open Division. Children aged 10–17 take part only through a guardian's family and with the guardian's participation consent.

3. Family Key and Student Pass

  • Your Family Key is shown once. Whoever holds it controls the family. Keep it private.
  • We hold no email or name, so we cannot recover a lost key, verify who you are, or transfer a family.
  • A Student Pass lets a child forecast for one participant only. Issuing a new pass replaces the old one.

4. Free to take part

Taking part is free. No purchase is necessary, and paid tools or services never add points. Season 1 has no payment processing on this site.

5. Results, rankings and awards

Season 1 has no leaderboard, no percentiles and no cash prizes. Any future award or ranking will be announced in a new rules version before the season it applies to.

6. Fair play

  • One participant per person. Do not submit for someone else without their guardian's consent.
  • Do not tamper with receipts, probe or overload the service, or try to access other families' data.
  • Do not harass anyone or share anyone's personal information.
  • Any public source, model or AI may be used, but each submission must disclose honestly whether AI was used.

Breaking these rules voids that participant's Season 1 results; the learning record is kept.

7. Your forecasts

Your forecasts and any work stay yours. You give us a limited permission to store and score them, to show them to you, to publish aggregate statistics and hashes, and to keep de-identified records so results remain verifiable. Publication, promotion and model training each need separate permission; taking part grants none of them.

8. Our content

Lessons and site content may be used for personal and classroom learning. RUDO and RUDO Weather Challenge are unregistered working names marked ™; please do not use them to suggest that we endorse you.

9. Not a weather service

RUDO is a learning platform, not a weather agency. Nothing on this site is a forecast or warning for anyone's safety. For safety decisions, follow your local weather service. Use of public NOAA/NWS/NCEI data does not imply their partnership or endorsement.

10. Availability and changes

We run the service as provided and may pause it for maintenance or security. Platform outages are handled under Rules article 7.3. We may update these Terms with a new version number and effective date; a change never alters results already published.

11. Ending

A guardian can delete participants at any time. We may suspend a family that breaks these Terms.

12. Liability

To the extent the law allows, the service is provided "as is" and we are not liable for indirect losses arising from its use. Nothing in these Terms limits rights that cannot be limited by law.

13. Contact

Use the contact form and choose "Other".