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How many teams should our school enroll for the Team Play?
To begin, it is important to observe that the Mandelbrot Team Play is a separate contest from the Mandelbrot Competition. There is no obligation to sign up for the Team Play; for some schools this would simply be one thing too many. For schools that do register, the option to enroll several teams is designed to give coordinators the flexibility to involve a widely varying number of students. For example, one coordinator may desire to administer the Mandelbrot Competition to all students during class and then have four interested students tackle the Team Play the following week after school, so this person would only register a single team. Another coordinator might want to have all twelve members of their math club take the Team Play in three groups of four, so this coach would enroll a total of three teams. Note that it is permissible (although not optimal) for a team to consist of less than four students. Furthermore, team composition may vary from round to round and is not dictated by students' performance on or involvement with the Mandelbrot Competition.