Siemens 2016

@szhang9246 What was it about?

I submitted as well, a paper in biomedical engineering. I forgot to put page numbers (it was under the limit) and I emailed them in a panic and they were so casual about it.

@Pedro73 I analyzed the coevolution between supermassive black holes and their host galaxies, comparing different galaxy properties. Nothing revolutionary, but I created a new empirical model that would eliminate biases in data.

It’s also pretty interesting that there are a lot more biology-related projects than any other field. I wonder why that especially is the case. Perhaps there are more research programs and opportunities in biology? Maybe professors and mentors tend to take high schoolers because biology doesn’t require such an advanced pre-requisite on math or science.

Mine was 1/2 calculus and 1/2 astrophysics.

There are definitely a lot of opportunities to do biology-related research as compared to physics/math-related research, resulting in many more biology projects. This is probably because the threshold of knowledge required to be able to conduct biology research is relatively low compared to a field like math.

On another note, only three weeks until semifinalist decisions are released!

I just studied the relationship between a pressure system and a current system in the North Atlantic. All we did was validate a new index that allows for more data to be used, prove a relationship, and just find trends between them that can narrow simulations for the future (and help simulate in the future). Its really difficult to judge “how good” one’s work is when it is compared to other fields though.

“Oh, I just wrote a really long paper about some seriously cool stuff and improved on established fields. Nothing too huge.”

Your guys’ research sounds amazing!

Yeah, I always feel that everyone else has amazing projects compared to mine. I feel like either the judges really like the project or they don’t think its good.

To even submit a project is incredibly difficult - everybody has put in hundreds, if not thousands, of hours into their research. I am sure it is very difficult for the judges to select only 300 projects out of the thousands that are submitted.

How did you guys come up with an idea? How did you get the resources to do it? I really want to do a science project because I love biology but coming up with an original idea is really hard and I don’t have a lab around me. What did you guys do?

I did an internship at a research institution. The easiest way to get involved is to apply for a summer research program or talk to a professor at a local university.

@Cookiesandcreme I also did my research at an institution. I would still suggest you to read up and literature to spark new ideas(that’s how I got mine). Still, im pretty lucky to have found a place that allowed me to do my research

Yeah, I asked a few professors for a mentorship. My advice is to look through a lot of recent research papers and find a topic that you particularly like. Contact the author of the paper and ask if you would like to do work for them.

I got a little lucky. At a science fair, a researcher from the university was judging and he walked over to my project saying that he worked with similar stuff. Although he wasn’t my judge he was interested. So my partner and I emailed him asking if he can mentor us for this year.

1 week left

Scared. I probably won’t make it though. I have that bad feeling.

On their twitter they said that judging started on October 10th, which means they’re selecting 300/1600 in 8 days… I’m pretty worried now because my abstract was pretty average and all my work was spent on the actual paper

Only on 10/10… these judges procrastinate harder than I do lol.

Man… I’m worried about my title lol. My title was extremely basic and did not reveal anything about my actual content. How much value does the title have for judging?

Do you guys want to share abstracts so we know how we compare?

I think they aren’t even spending 8 days grading but are just spending a few. Now I’m really nervous.