What do I do in order to have an ISEF/ISWEEP-worthy project?

So last year, I went to my state’s science fair and I absolutely loved it. I am planning on doing it this year too, but this time, I want to qualify for ISEF and/or ISWEEP. I have a couple projects in mind that are complex enough to be competitive. One project is lowering intraocular pressure in the eyes that cause Glaucoma with black seed oil. Another project idea would be creating a type of plastic that can dissolve in water and not be harmful or finding some way to remove/eradicate plastic (any kind) in water. The problem with all this is that I don’t know where to start or what to do. I have contacted my local state university and its research facility to find a mentor and with the responses I’ve gotten, anyone under 18 cannot use or be in a lab or be involved in research at the university, unless the student’s school has a program with the university. My school doesn’t, and quite frankly, only the private schools have these programs. Looking back and doing research on the ISEF qualifiers from my state last year, all the students but one, go to private schools. Anyway, does anybody have any advice on how I can do these projects or any project with these barriers? Thanks.

*** I accidentally posted this in the wrong discussion thread. It wasn’t meant for Stanford University. So sorry!

Both of those projects sound very interesting! I may not be qualified to answer this because I haven’t made it to ISEF, but here’s my advice as one of the few public school students to get an award at the Massachusetts State Science Fair.

When looking for a mentor, try and expand your search beyond state universities. Personally, I got lucky. I started volunteering in a STEM program at my library only to find out that the project coordinator had a background of helping students with the science fair. Her son is the most highly awarded science fair winner in my state! Although she couldn’t help me with the confusing science part of my project, she was a great help for bouncing off ideas, practicing my presentations, and getting my board together, which is a large and often overlooked part of the process. My project was a complete failure (incorrect hypothesis and inconclusive data) and not all that complex, but the presentation makes a huge difference…I saw an insane amount of breathtaking, complex projects that didn’t place. Also, she connected me to a professor at my community college who helped me with the project, gave me a job working in the laboratory this summer, and is letting me use the lab to work on my own project for the next science fair. Like I said, a lot of this was luck, but if you haven’t had success with your state university, reaching out to other people in your community who are passionate about science might bring you some luck too. You could contact your past/current science teachers and see if they can help or know someone, and like I said, I recommend contacting a community college.

However, first I’d recommend doing more research on those two project ideas. Anyone you contact is more likely to help you if you have a better idea of what you want to do. It’s okay to get confused along the process - that’s where mentors come in - but try and get a better understanding of the steps you’d like to take for your project by doing more research so you can be more persuasive as to why someone should mentor you. I found out that at my community college, a large reason I was presented with these opportunities was that I made it clear I could be successful with some guidance. My mentor helps me with my research, and in turn, I’ve brought in good publicity about the college by getting an award, which is just what my mentor was hoping for. If possible, convince them that helping you will be mutually beneficial.

Additionally, as I mentioned earlier, my project was a failure yet I still got an award. If you still can’t find a mentor, just change your topic to something you understand better, and do it really well. Science fair judging rubrics don’t have categories for “incredibly complex” or “will change the world”. The most important thing is convincing the judges that you used the scientific method thoroughly - you don’t need to cure cancer to do well. In my state, there was this insanely complex project about regrowing enamel on people’s teeth (or something like that, I didn’t even understand it) that didn’t place, whereas the grand prize award went to someone whose project measured the PH of snails. I don’t mean to badmouth the snail project, I’m sure it was amazing, but my point is that surface level complexity isn’t what matters.

Best of luck, sorry for such a long response!

I used to judge at Intel ISEF. The judges are aware that students have varying amounts of support in their projects. There are schools that I know where students have free access to scanning electron microscopes, PCR machines, and MRI machines. Then there are schools in the inner city where the resources are scarce.

Some of the highest placed winners that I’ve seen at ISEF have been those students who were creative, despite lack of resources. During the interview session, its fairly easy to tell when students are simply parroting information that the post-doc in the lab told them to say. But the students who stand out are the ones who design simple and elegant experiments.

So lets take your intra-ocular pressure reducing remedy. Getting IRB approval to do an experiment on humans obviously will take a lot of effort. Even trying to do this in animals will require you to have an extensive animal care facility. So what are you to do? Give up?? No…why not try to create a model of the human eye using everyday available materials (plastic, fluid, etc). Then come up with a device that measures pressure. Your experiment would then be to test out various concentrations of your seed oil on this ‘model’ to see how well it fares. Setting up the model and validating it would take a considerable amount of effort. But it can be done. You see where I’m getting at? Just be creative and try to find a way to test your hypothesis. Don’t worry if its not in a fancy lab. With some imagination anything can be done. Best of luck.

@dfimare Thank you for your advice! It was really helpful and I’ll try to go around my community and see what other resources I have.

@sgopal2 thank you for your advice! I started getting really helpless and almost giving up but your response gave me extra motivation. I like your suggestion on creating an eye ‘model’ and trying the remedy on that. I know it’s not going to be easy but I’m willing to put much effort.