<p>Hi, I am quite new to the whole science fair thing, and I wanted to do enter and try it out. My physics teacher with a PhD has agreed to do the competition, but how do we get started? When do we register, and what kind of research do we do?</p>
<p>How do people come up with a thing to investigate?</p>
<p>And any advice as to what topics in Physics seem manageable.</p>
<p>And lastly, I was a bit curious about the Math section, how does one actually do math research?</p>
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<p>Math research is quite challenging. If you are that interested in math, maybe email/talk/get in contact with college math professors, who may want your help? I took a college class last sem, and I used the chance to talk to my professor, who agreed to work with me on a research project (he does about 5-8 research projects with undergraduate students a semester…so I thought why not, he could do one with a high school student too).</p>
<p>^ Nice. I am currently taking Linear Algebra, and the instructor is really nice, but I don’t think he does any research. Which class did you take?</p>
<p>Calc 3. It depends on the professor. I checked his profile online, which talked about research with students etc., so I was like sweet…perfect</p>
<p>^ How does one do research in Calc 3? For research, does one discover something new, or build upon others’ research? What exactly constitutes as research?</p>
<p>For math research, I’m thinking it’s something along the lines of proofs or equations that have some application to the real world, and stuff like that.</p>
<p>That is indeed interesting. Would it have to be never discovered and brand new?</p>
<p>Bumping this up.</p>
<p>For an idea on what constitutes math research for a high school competition you could look at the Intel STS winner’s project description. It was a math project. Also ISEF publishes the abstracts of all finalists every year. For higher level ideas, look at math journals and see what academics publish. Math may be very abstract (theorectical) or applied. Also a 2008 Davidson Fellow’s research was in Math. You can see his project description on the website.</p>
<p>I don’t get why everything has to have an “application to the real world.”
My research with my professor is extremely abstract, and there are probably no real applications to it…it’s just fun to do I guess…since we are all obviously curious about the answers to the problems, and once we find the answers we get excited about explaining them to others who are also interested. In other words, mathematical research is not merely a means to an end; it is a goal in and of itself.</p>
<p>i made it to the ISEF Finals last year. its a load of work but definitely worth it. and judges like to hear projects that relate to the real world so it serves an impact. the most BSed projects somehow managed to get through just because of its “application to the real world”.</p>
<p>Yea, that’s just the nature of the beast. From what I’ve seen ISEF seems to like projects that have a real world application more than a competition like Intel Science Talent Search. I know a person who did a math project that was very theoretical. His project made it to the Intel Semifinalist but he didn’t make it to ISEF. So in terms of competition a theoretical research paper would have a better chance at winning in Intel, imo.</p>
<p>So does your research mentor have to have a PhD. I asked my math teacher who has a Masters in pure mathematics. He’s quite smart and has done research before, but having a research mentor without a PhD won’t be bad right?</p>
<p>No. You do not even need to have a mentor at all.</p>
<p>Do people starting a project normally have problems finding a topic to research? I am really interested in Math/Physics but cannot manage to find a topic…</p>
<p>Any suggestions, I am in need of help</p>
<p>ooo I think you should be careful. If you look on the ISEF site and see their forms you’ll see that they don’t want you to do ANYTHING before a certain date.
Last year, i think it was September 1st (I could be WAY wrong, so you need to look into it. I could have mixed it up with something else.)</p>
<p>Well there are people that work on their projects 2 years in advance, but I am merely finding a general topic to go into, not even a research question yet…</p>
<p>I am not bumping this thread up by posting a useless comment.</p>
<p>The ideas at [this site](<a href=“Search - All”>Search - All) can get you started.</p>
<p>In any case the [Science buddies](<a href=“http://www.sciencebuddies.org/”>http://www.sciencebuddies.org/</a>) site can
help you understand how to get to the ISEF. You will usually be safe following
your state’s Science fair rules.</p>
<p>You will first need to qualify in an ISEF qualifying fair in your state or place
appropriately in other Science Research competitions. To my knowledge the
state delegations are quite restricted and very competitive to get into. I
have personally enjoyed representing my state at ISEF as much as winning at STS
or Siemens and have found all 3 experiences to be quite different.</p>
<p>Getting to ISEF is based on your display, notebook, presentation skills and
ability to field questions from your judges. Intel STS and Siemens are based
on the 18-20 page paper you write and your responses to the initial
essay questions alongside your mentor’s feedback. It is in the next round
that the criteria for STS and Siemens are similar to that of ISEF.</p>