Introduction & acceptance
Five Sparks LLC ("Five Sparks," "we," "us," or "our") operates MeridianSpark, including the website, mobile experiences, and related online services (collectively, the "Service").
By accessing or using the Service, you agree to these Terms of Service ("Terms") and our Privacy Policy. If you do not agree, do not use the Service.
MeridianSpark is designed for college-bound high school students and the adults who support them (parents, guardians, and education mentors). Users under 18 should use the Service with guidance from a parent, guardian, or educator.
We may update these Terms from time to time. The "Last updated" date at the top of this page shows when they were last revised. Material changes may be communicated through the Service or by email where appropriate.
What MeridianSpark is (and is not)
The Service is informational and educational planning support. It is not legal, medical, psychological, or other professional advice.
- MeridianSpark provides. AI-assisted Lab-Free research projects: a public project page, a paid week-by-week handbook, methods orientation, literature and dataset pointers, and preview-level admissions framing. Human mentors (teachers, counselors, parents) stay outside the product.
- MeridianSpark is not. A school, accreditor, college admissions office, grading service, or substitute for teachers, counselors, or institutional rules.
- We do not. Write submit-ready research papers or Common App essays for you, generate a private custom project from your prompt, provide in-app coaching chat, guarantee admission or competition outcomes, or certify that any project is approved by a specific institution or competition.
- Your responsibility. Students and the adults who support them remain responsible for academic integrity, citations, final wording, honest representation in applications, and compliance with school and competition policies.
AI-generated and automated content
Published project pages, handbooks, and preview cards are produced by our internal automated research pipeline, which may use large language models and other software together with literature metadata and curriculum-aligned rules.
That pipeline does not use your personal account information as input for generating public projects, as described in our Privacy Policy.
Automated content may be incomplete, outdated, or incorrect. Methods, timelines, dataset URLs, variable names, AP or coursework alignment, admissions previews, and weekly steps must be independently verified against primary sources, official codebooks, portal terms of use, and your mentor or school requirements.
Marketing language that projects are "grounded in peer-reviewed literature" refers to seed discovery from abstracts and bibliographic metadata—not a claim that every sentence in a handbook has been expert-verified or peer-reviewed.
Teaser or project-page content may be indexed for discovery. Indexing or a public project page does not mean we endorse every detail in the full handbook.
Acceptable use & academic integrity
- Honest work. Use the Service to plan and structure independent work. Follow your school's and competitions' rules on originality, disclosure of assistance, and citation.
- No misrepresentation. Do not present MeridianSpark-generated project pages, handbooks, or outlines as solely your own original research or writing where disclosure is required.
- Prohibited conduct. Cheating, plagiarism, harassment, attempting to bypass access controls, scraping bulk Content, reverse-engineering the Service to extract proprietary pipelines, or uploading others' personal information without permission.
- Enforcement. We may suspend or terminate access for violations or risk to the Service or other users, subject to applicable law.
Accounts
You may create an account with email and password or sign in with Google, as offered on the Service. You agree to provide accurate information and keep your credentials secure.
Accounts are for individual use. Do not share login credentials to circumvent membership or handbook access rules.
You may request account deletion by emailing us. Self-service account deletion is not yet available in the product; see our Privacy Policy for details.
Membership & billing
Free and paid access
Visitors can read today’s project page without an account. Browsing all project pages requires sign-in. A free account can read every project page and save projects; it cannot open any handbook—including today’s.
Paid prepaid access unlocks the full handbook for every published project during your access window. One-month, three-month, and six-month options differ in duration and price, not in reading scope during an active paid period.
MeridianSpark uses single prepaid access periods processed through Stripe—not auto-renewing subscriptions. When prepaid access ends, you keep the handbook for projects published on or before your last paid end date. Newer projects return to the project page until you extend, as described on Pricing.
Payments, tax, and refunds
Listed prices exclude applicable sales tax where required. Tax is calculated at Stripe Checkout based on your billing address.
Prepaid access is generally non-refundable once activated, except where required by law or where we determine a charge was made in error. Receipts and billing history are available through your Account and Stripe's customer portal.
Access to paid content is granted only after our systems confirm payment (for example, via Stripe webhooks). A success message or return URL alone does not unlock paid content.
Upgrades while active
While prepaid access is active, you may upgrade to a longer interval and pay a prorated one-time difference as shown at checkout. Downgrades are not available mid-term.
Intellectual property
- Our content. The Service, branding, software, pipeline, templates, and compilations of structured project content are owned by Five Sparks LLC or its licensors and protected by applicable intellectual property laws.
- Your work. You retain ownership of original artifacts and writing you create. You grant us the licenses needed to host, process, and display your account data as described in the Privacy Policy.
- Third-party materials. Seed papers, datasets, and external links remain subject to their owners' terms. We provide links and metadata to support your verification; we do not transfer third-party rights to you.
Disclaimers & limitation of liability
THE SERVICE AND ALL CONTENT ARE PROVIDED "AS IS" AND "AS AVAILABLE" WITHOUT WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, WHETHER EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING WARRANTIES OF ACCURACY, COMPLETENESS, MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE, OR NON-INFRINGEMENT.
Admissions previews, competition fit estimates, project scores, and similar editorial features are heuristic planning aids—not predictions, guarantees, or official assessments from any college, competition, or accreditor.
To the maximum extent permitted by law, Five Sparks LLC and its officers, directors, employees, and suppliers will not be liable for any indirect, incidental, special, consequential, or punitive damages, or for loss of profits, data, goodwill, or admissions or academic outcomes arising from your use of the Service.
To the maximum extent permitted by law, our total liability for any claim relating to the Service is limited to the greater of (a) amounts you paid to us for prepaid access in the twelve (12) months before the event giving rise to the claim, or (b) fifty U.S. dollars (USD $50).
Some jurisdictions do not allow certain disclaimers or limitations; in those jurisdictions, our liability is limited to the fullest extent permitted by law.
Third-party services
The Service integrates with third parties such as Stripe (payments), Google (sign-in), hosting and database providers, email delivery, and AI or literature API providers. Your use of those services may be subject to their terms and privacy policies.
We are not responsible for third-party outages, policy changes, or acts outside our reasonable control.
Termination
You may stop using the Service at any time. You may sign out and request account deletion as described in our Privacy Policy.
We may suspend or terminate your access if we reasonably believe you violated these Terms, create risk or legal exposure, or if we discontinue the Service or features.
Sections that by their nature should survive termination (including intellectual property, disclaimers, limitation of liability, and governing law) will survive.
Governing law & disputes
These Terms are governed by the laws of the State of Delaware, United States, without regard to conflict-of-law rules, except where mandatory consumer protection laws in your jurisdiction provide otherwise.
Except where prohibited by law, you agree that exclusive jurisdiction for disputes relating to these Terms or the Service lies in the state or federal courts located in Delaware, and you consent to personal jurisdiction there.
Before filing a formal dispute, we encourage you to contact us so we can try to resolve the issue informally.
Contact
Questions about these Terms may be directed to:
Email: privacy@5sparks.ai
Five Sparks LLC (operator of MeridianSpark)
For privacy-specific requests, see our Privacy Policy.