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<p>Good work Mr. WongTongTong! And, NspiredOne, I would highly recommend doing research if you have the time and you know your interests lay in math or the sciences. It is truly an enriching experience. I am actually typing this reply as I am waiting on results in a lab.</p>
<p>Well, I personally know one of the top 6 finalist from Siemens last year. He did research with me at Duke. Luckily in North Carolina, there is a program that helps you get a research mentor and a place to live at Duke while you do it. I am now in my second year of research.</p>
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<p>Surely you speak of Lanair Lett? Where’s he headed off to for college, mind me asking?</p>
<p>Thread revival</p>
<p>It seems that everyone is entering this contest with aid of a mentor.</p>
<p>Are there any successful entries without a mentor? … Especially if the project is based off of theory (computer science)</p>
<p>Well, the difficulties of choosing a topic and proper research project within the topic is daunting even for the mightiest of high schoolers.</p>
<p>Writing a 20 page paper intended to be read at the scientific level will be even more daunting without the guidance of a mentor. Just getting the formatting and the references in can be a nightmare (try putting in 50 references and format them in the appropriate manner according to the 50 billion formats T.T). MLA is no go.</p>
<p>For theoretical topics, i can see why you might not need a mentor. Nevertheless, it is always good to have an expert give you instant feedback and critique of common mistakes you might make. Computer Science is actually quite popular a topic and provide interesting results. Lots of projects about how to more efficiently enhance a network.</p>
<p>I’m thinking of entering the competition next year (current junior) on something related to biomedical engineering (which I want as my major). How do you go about choosing a topic though? How do you get started with this process? Is it best to email a mentor and ask them about probable topics?</p>
<p>Should I just email professors not having as much background info, or should I read up a lot more and then email them? I feel like if I try to read up more I won’t understand as much without the help of a mentor (the research I’m interested in is very complicated stuff-cancer, embryonic development…) …I guess what I’m asking is can you email a professor to mentor you with background info and learn more about the topic and THEN start doing research based on what you learned and any questions that arise?</p>
<p>So here’s what happened with my son. It might be too late to enter competitions but he’s going to try. He’s going to have to research deadlines for various competitions.</p>
<p>My son is homeschooled and he took all the physics courses at the local community college. Since I help with his schedule, I decided to look for another physics course for him to take. I found a class at the local state univ. (less than 10 minutes away) that seemed to fit the bill. I emailed the prof, he emailed my son, they met, and he let my son audit the course. It’s a 400 level physics course (maybe equal to a 300 level at a selective school). Since my son did so well the first semester (got the highest grade in the class), the prof invited him to do research this summer. I’m not sure if he’s actually getting paid since the word “apprentice” was mentioned. Obviously, it doesn’t matter. My son has no experience with research but he does have some ideas on topics (area of ultra fast lasers). Now, since he hasn’t done research before, I don’t know if 3-4 months of research will be enough for him to use to enter competitions but the prof wants to help in any way he can.</p>
<p>We know a number of kids who’ve done research when they were quite young but most are connected in some way to academia or in their private schools, so this was a pretty amazing sequence of events given we’re just a typical blue collar middle class family.</p>
<p>HTH someone.</p>
<p>Do you guys think it’s too late to start email profs now to enter this year?</p>