It’s science fair time again and you’ve recycled the same project with a slightly different spin year in year out. You want to make something different but everything feels either overly-ambitious and complicated, or like it has already been done. The trick is to find that sweet middle ground, something solid and achievable but with a sense of individuality and uniqueness; a novel approach to a topical issue. Easier said than done, right?
We spoke with Nova Scholar to hear their thoughts on what you should set your mind to for your school’s science fair ideas, and how to make the most out of the resources available to you. This article will run through a few different categories, from machine learning models to papier-maché models.
Why should I put effort into a science project?
A science project is an amazing way to do something self-motivated beyond the curriculum, to explore an idea you might have had without the confines of assignments and exams. It allows you to work with intellectual freedom, and become part of a community of others doing the same.
Maybe you’re someone who doesn’t care much about science, you prefer to go home and read a novel, or make music with your friends. Then use these passions; science is ubiquitous, anything you’re interested in could be the center of your project. Perhaps you could build an AI model that helps organize your reading or suggest new books, or maybe you could create a soundscape from an inanimate object. From a long-term perspective, having created a unique project during your school years shows dedication, motivation and intellectual curiosity to colleges and employers. It may untap an interest in research, lab-work, or engineering that was previously hidden.
So What Should I Make?
The best ideas will be those that stem directly from your interests and showcase your personality, so use these suggestions as inspiration for something that is completely your own. We have organized the ideas into several categories based on where your technical skills or interests may lie. In addition, being able to frame your project in terms of real-world application is easier when it is born out of your own interests, needs or desires.
1. Machine Learning Models
Machine learning is all the rage right now, so knowing how to train even a very simple model would be impressive; the skills would be valuable and you could easily adapt your project to anything you’re interested in. This is also one of the easiest projects to do with limited resources. You could create small data sets yourself, or there are many open-source data sets for you to train your models from available on the internet. It is also straightforward to find learning materials; the coding world tends to be a relatively inclusive and collaborative environment.
a. Music Genre Detector
Train a model to be able to predict the genre of a song either via audio clips or lyrics.
Difficulty: Medium
b. Weather Appropriate Outfit Planner
Train a model using weather data to be able to suggest what you should wear based on the current weather, you could even train it to recognize weather conditions from images.
Difficulty: Medium
c. Traffic Sign Detector
Use a dataset of road signs to train a model to recognize and interpret different traffic signs, such as stop, one-way etc. you could even use a dataset of traffic signs from another country and frame it as a useful tool for travel.
Difficulty: Easy
d. Cooking Substitution Recommender
Train the model on lots of recipe datasets, and develop a tool to be used when what’s in the cupboard isn’t quite cutting it.
Difficulty: Medium
e. Sports Form Corrector
Train a model on a dataset of photos of workout poses (squats, deadlifts, chest press etc…) with correct and incorrect form.
Difficulty: Medium
f. Sleep Sound Analyzer
Train a model to classify sleep sounds (snoring, sleep talking, movement) into sleep categories, maybe even inferring the quality of sleep from the sounds.
Difficulty: Hard
g. Chess Opponent Weakness Analyzer
If you’re a chess player, create a useful tool for yourself and others: train a model on game analyses so it can detect what your opponent’s weakness was (e.g. bad endgame, weak opening, not castling) for you to learn from their mistakes!
Difficulty: Medium
h. Flashcard Game
Create a simple game with your study notes, this really should be a tool for your own use so incorporate elements of games that you know you enjoy.
Difficulty: Medium
i. Handwriting to Text Generator
Train a model to be able to write up your notes into neat documents from your handwritten classwork.
Difficulty: Hard
2. Posters and Models
This is one of the more traditional categories that isn’t to be overlooked for a number of reasons. First, this is one of the more affordable and accessible ways of working. Second, you aren’t bound by the limits of your coding capabilities, so your imagination can really run free. Third, you can create something tactile, or visually striking, which can add a unique dynamic to your work.
- Infographic Poster
Explain a difficult concept through a visually striking poster, you could add elements that can be touched or smelled. If other options feel daunting, there is nothing wrong with a well-achieved poster, it’s a classic for a reason.
Difficulty: Easy
- DIY Catapult
Use a number of different materials to build both catapults and objects to be flung with them, and make a conclusion about which materials are best suited for the job. This project explores the fundamental physics notion of projectile motion.
Difficulty: Easy
- Bridge Building Project
Compare everyday materials for the suitability of a bridge, play around with aspects like the length – height ratio and the thickness of different parts of the structure. At the science fair you could test its capacity to bear weight.
Difficulty: Medium
- Papier-Maché Human Body
Recreate a certain bit of human anatomy, all the muscles in the arm or the cardiovascular system. To make this more interesting you could choose to recreate some of the body under stress, depicting what a torn muscle or heart condition looks like visually.
Difficulty: Medium
- Papier-Maché Volcano
Another classic is the papier-maché volcano, the structure is not overly complicated and it is easy to create an eruption with everyday ingredients like baking soda and vinegar. To make this a bit more interesting you could attempt to recreate the geographical structure of a real-world eruption and explain its consequences.
Difficulty: Easy
3. Environmental and Sustainability Projects
These types of projects immediately tick the real-world application box; environmentalism and sustainability are being actively researched by scientists across the globe, so this is one area where thinking outside of the box and pioneering innovation can really make an impact. Unlike the previous two categories, these types of projects aren’t defined by the method of creating them, so the following list will pull ideas from multiple disciplines, including AI models and physical sculptures.
a. Air Pollution Detector
Use cheap air quality detectors (like a PM2.5 sensor or CO₂ sensor) to measure local air conditions across a number of regions. Place the detector in a few different locations (in different rooms of your house, outdoors, near a busy road, in a park, on public transport) and compare the readings. Present the data in graphs showing pollution disparities, by location or potentially by time of day.
Difficulty: Hard
b. Water Pollution Detector
Collect a number of different water samples (the sea, local rivers and lakes, rainwater) and use a pH strip to get an indication of how healthy the water is. Healthy freshwater ecosystems should have a pH of between 6.5 and 8.5. Although identifying the pH doesn’t give you the full picture, it can be a good indicator of problems like chemical spills.
Difficulty: Medium
c. Calculate the Energy Consumption of Everyday Appliances
Does your microwave use more or less energy than your hair straighteners? Use a plug-in power meter to detect how much energy each of these appliances uses and find out which is the biggest energy guzzler.
Difficulty: Medium
d. Seasonal Produce Identifier
Create a poster of the produce available in your local area organized by season. You could even visit your local supermarket and work out how much of the produce available is local and seasonal and how much is imported, and make a case about why eating seasonally is sustainable and desirable.
Difficulty: Easy
e. Clothes Recycling Project
Come up with an idea to combat fast fashion: you could design an app that allows people within a school community to trade unwanted clothes items with each other, you could present your idea as a poster or even build a prototype.
Difficulty: Easy / Medium
f. Microplastics in Water
Collect samples from different water sources in your area (kitchen faucet, local river, the sea) and study them under a microscope to see which contains the most larger microplastic particles. You can learn how to identify plastics as opposed to natural substances on the internet.
Difficulty: Hard
g. Plastic Bag Alternative
Test the durability of different materials of bag (cotton, paper, hemp) under different circumstances to find out which is the best alternative to single-use plastic.
Difficulty: Easy
4. Everyday Inventions
What everyday irritation really grinds your gears? Is it not being able to get that last little bit of milk out of the carton? Is it never finding a hairband when you most need one? What about when all of your wires get into a tangled mess? The best projects in this category will be those that address that issue that we all complain about but do nothing to fix.
- The Last Drop Device
Design a bottle or container that allows you to get every last drop of liquid out of it, perhaps it would be cylindrical, or with a certain ridging. Experiment with different shapes and find out what works best!
Difficulty: Medium
- Key Retrieval Device
Always losing your keys in the bottom of your bag? Design a device to make them appear as quickly as possible and get back the time you spend shuffling awkwardly outside your front door. Perhaps you could use a magnet, or some kind of clip that fits inside your bag.
Difficulty: Medium
- The Sock Cupid
Design a way of keeping socks together in the wash whilst also allowing them to be washed sufficiently; maybe the solution is a mesh bag, a specific way of clipping them or using string. You find out!
Difficulty: Easy
5. Experimental Science
This category is all about uncovering patterns in the everyday. The projects in this category follow the traditional scientific pipeline: forming a hypothesis, changing one variable and recording the results.
- Analyze Methods of Unconventional Water Purification
What would be the best thing to use to purify water if you were in a really desperate situation? For this experiment, choose a variety of easy-to-find (and safe to ingest) filtration devices or chemical compounds, buy a water purity detector on the internet and compare the results!
Difficulty: Easy
- Testing Surfaces for Harmful Bacteria
Test the surfaces of common areas, (e.g the library, the bathroom, the toilet seat) for harmful bacteria to find out which is the dirtiest, it’s probably not the one you expect.
Difficulty: Medium
- Physical Reactions to Music Experiment
Find out what the correlation is between your bodily reaction and your enjoyment of music; you could measure heart rate and body temperature whilst listening to different genres of music, maybe asking which genre has the biggest physical effect on your participants, or how the body changes when listening to favourite music vs music that is disliked.
Difficulty: Medium
- Plant Growth Experiment
Plant seeds in different environments (near a window, in a cupboard, outdoors) and find out which is the optimal environment for growth.
Difficulty: Easy
- Music Distraction Experiment
See how much background music affects concentration: have two different groups take the same exam, one group in a silent room and the other in a room with background music and compare the results. You could even have a third group with louder music (or music of a different genre) in the background.
Difficulty: Easy
- Light Distraction Experiment
This experiment is similar to the previous but rather than experimenting with sound experiment with light; you could compare artificial light with natural light, or overly lit rooms with underlit rooms. Perhaps you could have erratic lighting in one room (flickering or colourful for example) and stable light in another.
Difficulty: Easy
These ideas span from the classic to the ridiculous, but each one is open to your interpretation and can be made brilliant. The key is adapting your project to your own needs and creating something fun, useful, or just a bit silly, so that fellow fair-goers stop and smile.
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