<p>Disclaimer: I want to do research because I love research and science in general, not to win a competition</p>
<p>So I was wondering how do I go about starting a research project. I really have no idea where to begin. I know I want to do a project in either Mathematics or Physics. I'm a junior, so I have about 9ish months to complete a project and write a paper? I won't get into RSI and I can't afford other research programs so I don't know how to start a project on my own. And how do I get to the level of specificity that is common in the projects that get Finalist spots at Siemens and Intel? For example, I find dark matter interesting, but how do I make a research project out of it? Can anyone who has done a research project please share their experience? Thanks!</p>
<p>Bump. I’m interested to hear an answer for this as well.</p>
<p>A few of my friends have done high-leveled projects though. They generally researched something they were interested in, came up with a question, wrote up a research plan, and emailed professors. I’ve tried, but while I want to go into scientific research, I kind of suck at brainstorming projects for experimentation. </p>
<p>I’d love to hear the answer to this as well. Like @awakeningvenus, I’m horrible at brainstorming projects.</p>
<p>Like @topaz1116 and @awakeningvenus , I can never brainstorm projects. Would love to hear a response as well.</p>
<p>I would recommend going to the Intel site and studying the winning projects in each category you are interested in for the past few years. Make a note of any project that sounds interesting to you, and potentially doable with your local resources (e.g., whether you have university labs nearby or not). You can get ideas that way, and you can also just use your childlike curiosity that you once had – you know, how kids always ask questions, especially Why. Do you have any unanswered questions that you have pondered before, that you could try to answer through your research? Do you have any other interests outside of math and science that you could apply mathematical and scientific concepts to, such as sports or the arts or pets or the environment? What about current events – do they raise questions in your mind that you could explore answers to (such as proving a connection between fracking and earthquakes, e.g.)? </p>
<p>You’re really going to be working from a hypothesis, and whether your research proves the hypothesis right, wrong, or unknown is not the point – the point will be that you posed a question to study, and you collected data, and then analyzed it. An alternative with math or computers is creating a computational model or program to analyze data. </p>
<p>Go to sciencedaily.com and read the science articles that interest you for a few days and note what areas of research or math exploration you find most intriguing. Start jotting down ideas randomly. Do brainstorming sessions where you write down as many ideas as you can in a fifteen minute period. Do this with a friend or relative, going back and forth as fast as possible, then see what you have on the list. I could go on and on with suggestions but I think you get the idea. Feed your mind first with information on areas of research, then make a master list of ideas without judgment on them (so you’re not paralyzed trying to think of THE idea), then narrow the list down to your favorites and consider how you would do each project, and then pick the best one.</p>
There’s a very simple analogy that my professor told me my freshman year in high school when I began doing research in pure math: “you meet problems like you meet people.” That is to say, sometimes spending your time searching for a problem to study is the wrong way to go about things. You’re better of properly positioning yourself in such a way that these problems will meet you.
It’s like, say, dating. You’re not going to find a girlfriend sitting in your room watching game of thrones all day. So, you post a profile on match.com and wait for that cute girl to message you.
Research is the same way.
Email professors, get in their labs… Depending on your area of study. Learn from them, listen to them. Ideas will soon follow.