<p>I live in a rural area in Ohio, so it's not going to be that competitive, though some of the regional things include bigger cities where they can research at universities. I don't have a university available for that, so I'm already disadvantaged. I'm considering a math project for next year because I'm tired of science and all the wishy washy experiments and things going wrong. I'm more of a math person. I also know from the science fairs I've participated in that math isn't a very competitive area, so it's easy to win awards.</p>
<p>If you don't have a mentor, I wouldn't suggest a math project. If you're already amazing at proofs (i.e. USAMO questions are doable), you might manage to write proofs for some open problem and submit them.</p>
<p>i would love to jump in and try something to do with math in this competition for this year. I am relatively new to this and have no university help at all but some of the USAMO questions seem doable to me.</p>
<p>What im asking is any opinions on where to start, how to kick it off, anyone to ask... should i find a math prof in my region (i live in northwestern, IN by the way), or what can i do?</p>
<p>Heh, I'm in IN also. Yea, I have a math professor as my mentor. I'd recommend you find one also.</p>
<p>im in the southwest with texas. its not very hard to get semifinalist. but they do pick 50 semis max from each region.</p>
<p>Where did you hear about this 50 max thing? If they have a 50 limit, then they must pick 50 from each region since if one region has 49, another region must have 51. So I doubt this 50 limit is true.</p>
<p>junglebum, I believe you are incorrect. During the semifinalist round, Siemens picks the top 300 projects in the country. I'm sure you can assume that there will be 5 individual and 5 team projects for each respective regional that will be a semifinalist, given the intellect by the few albeit talented students in the nation. Choosing 50 per regional is foolish; some regionals will obviously be harder than others, and Siemens would like to choose the most elite projects that are submitted. From there, they can sort out who belongs to what regional, and further select the elite of the elite to move on to the regional competition. </p>
<p>stupidkid, that's cool. My friend said the experience was exciting and enjoyable at the regional competition, and they got a lot of free stuff from the foundation. So I'm guessing you're going to enter individual now that you're a senior?</p>
<p>Actually you get a lot of free stuff for being semifinalist too. The only extra stuff we got were a show-off t-shirt with siemens regional finalist written on the front lol, and a pretty nice trophy (you get 2 trophies if you win). Oh and the food was freakin amazing. The experience was indeed awesome. Yea, I'm going to submit an individual project this year.</p>
<p>ok. yeah i think the 50 max thing was wrong. </p>
<p>but if only seniors can do individual, why are there more of them?</p>
<p>What's your question addressing? If you're asking why there aren't more team projects, it's probably because there are far fewer opportunities (or at least where I'm from) where you can work with one or two other people and a mentor. It's a lot easier to enter individually, because most research projects involve a student and a mentor one on one.</p>
<p>i see. does anyone have any past papers that have at least gotten semifinalist that i may see?</p>
<p>thanks in advance?</p>
<p>I don't mean to be a prick, but I don't think anyone would ever do that.</p>
<p>I think going through sciserv.org/sts and reading samples of shortened papers would be your best bet. They have shortened versions of papers (1 page) for each of STS's top three students.</p>
<p>I'll give you my abstract if you PM me.</p>
<p>I was a Regional Finalist this past year as well and my advice is this, assuming you already have a research project that you are carrying out. Entering a research project into Siemens and being competitive indicates that you probably have pretty good background knowledge in the field that you're doing your project on and that you're not just carrying out one of those typical high school lab experiments that can be done in one day. If you are, then tough luck to you because you'll be stacked against unbelievable competition with some people who have done impressive things like finding gene markers that could lead to the cure for cancer or modeling oscillating biological systems. Assuming that you know what your research is about and that you're rather serious about it, your research paper should be well written and also somewhat marketable (as if you were trying to sell a product) to get to Semifinalist level. Have professors look over your paper and other people who can give knowledge in your field read your paper and critique it. Don't mind them if they tear the paper apart because that's all part of the learning process. After getting past Semifinalist status, it is all about knowing your project inside and outside so that you can answer tough questions as well as convey the reasons your project will or could be useful in the future. </p>
<p>Best advice I can give you - Dream big, take risks, be creative, use your curiosity, and aim to save the world!</p>
<p>woah just found this thread. I was regional finalist last year too. I'm entering this year with a math/computer science project. I entered it under computer science though</p>
<p>Hey has anyone gotten any calls or indications of if they made it to regionals? The anticipation is killing me :[ one day!</p>
<p>I don't think they're making calls this year since the announcement is simultaneous and rigidly scheduled. Er.. that's my way of making myself feel better.</p>
<p>last year they called us for regionals. However, that was because the announcements for regionals and semis were a couple of weeks apart. Also, the region I was in had the least amount of time between the official regional announcement and the regional competition. I don't know what they did for other regions though.</p>
<p>which region?
I was in MI and i did get a call</p>
<p>i was in west</p>