Qualified for Intel

[dlsmadscienctist]

Hello Science Buddies Experts,
Just wanted to let you know that I made Intel! Thank you for your help with my project some time ago. I just have a few questions.
1) My board is about 36 inches by 48 inches. Is this big enough to be competitive? It has a nice color scheme and is simple.

2) How much does the board count towards the overall grade/placement? Interview?



Thanks,

dlsmadscienctist

[mpphlipot]

Congratuations on qualifying for ISEF! That's a great accomplishment in itself.

The display is critically important. Only about 8-10 judges will be able to interview you and get to learn the details of your project directly from you. But many, many more will be judging your project soley on the basis of what you have displayed. That's why its so important that it be a solid and clear representation of your project.

There have been a few posts recently in this forum (as well as the forum on preparing for science fairs) that talk about the importance of the display and some tips on making yours stand out. I suggest you take a look at those and incorporate as much as possible into your project.

Good luck at ISEF!
Mike

[Terik Daly]

I echo mpphlipot's congratulations! I also echo his comments about looking at the other topics in this Forum, as well as Science Buddies' Project Guide and Competitions information. It is really excellent stuff! If you have additional questions as you prepare for ISEF, please ask! On this Forum you have the perspective of ISEF Judges, former ISEF winners, and ISEF-affiliated fair administrators - it really is a superb resource!

Best wishes in your preparations!

[dlsmadscienctist]

Ok thank you for your help.

I'm just curious, again with my board, it is attractive, with a couple of graphs and presents the simple and basic picture of my project.

What I want to know is do I have to go in detail about my project? And is there an advantage to having a bigger board? I am sure mine is attractive, I just want past opinions, etc.


Thanks,
dlsmadscienctist

[Terik Daly]

Your board should be able to tell the whole story of your project - what you did, why you did it, what you found out and why I should care - without you having to be there to explain it. Like mpphlipot said, a lot of judging is going to take place without you at your board. If you think your board as is is professional and the absolute best thing you could make to represent yourself at ISEF, then I would stick with it. If, however, you feel there are some things that could be improved upon or need fixing, I would go ahead and make those changes. Remember, you're competing against ~1500 of the world's best high school students. You're going to be going up against world-class competition. So again, if you feel you're board is world class as is, then I wouldn't change anything.

However, I'm almost certain that there are things you can improve upon. You probably learned a few things at your regional/state fair. Can you apply those to improving your board? Did your judges give you any specific feedback about what aspects of your project could be improved? I would go through and critically examine each part of your display board - with the help of an outside eye (previous judge, science teacher, mentor) if possible - and then decide how you are going to improve it.

[dlsmadscienctist]

Thank you,

I would also like to know if there are any limits to board size? the dimensions?

And do you think it is better to have a tri-fold or one flat poster?

Where can I order posters like this to be made and how do I get my project on there?




Regards,

dlsmadscienctist

[Terik Daly]

dlsmadscienctist,

Yes, there are strict limitations to how large your display can be. Here they are: http://societyforscience.org/isef/rules/safdisp.pdf. They are very strict about their display and safety rules. They have measuring tapes and will measure your board to make sure it is within the dimension limitations. They don't even let you have a binder or folder stick out over the edge of your table.

Choosing how you want to do your display depends on your budget and how you are going to get your display to ISEF. I would talk with your fair manager (or whoever is in charge of your ISEF delegation) to see what they recommend for transportation. As far as getting your material onto the board, if you go with large poster, you can design it in programs such as PowerPoint, Publisher, InDesign, and Illustrator. Companies like FedEx Kinkos can usually print them, although they are pricey. Other companies that do large color printing can often be cheaper, but harder to track down. I would look in the Yellow Pages for ideas about local printing companies. Again, your fair manager may have some suggestions. If you do a tri-fold board, you can choose to have things printed commercially, or you can do it yourself. If you have a nice color inkjet printer, you can usually do it yourself and make it look nice, especially if you use a few tricks. For instance, using photo paper instead of regular paper will make your images and text really "pop". Also, you can cut poster board to fit your printer. For example, say you had a section on statistics analysis that was 11 inches by 20 inches. If you find a piece of nice, quality poster board (I prefer to use white and then print color in it), you can cut it to this size and then feed that long piece through your printer (assuming it will accept something 11 inches wide). This is a good way to print long sections continuously by yourself. You will need to mess around a bit with the settings on your printer, but doing so will usually save your some money.

I've attached an example of one of the spreads from an old ISEF board of mine to help you see one possibility for designing a tri-fold ISEF board.

Let me know if this is confusing or if you have any more questions! We're here to help!

[dlsmadscienctist]

thanks

I will get on that. I am a little behind on forms. What happens if I do not turn in the forms on time or 12 days after my regional fair?



-dlsmadscienctist

[Terik Daly]

dlsmadscienctist,

PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE TURN IN YOUR FORMS ON TIME!!! Intel ISEF is incredibly strict about deadlines. If you do not turn your forms in on time, you will be disqualified - no ifs, ands, or buts about it. I would suggest not worrying about your board and presentation until you have all your forms and paperwork finished and submitted. You've worked very hard to get this far, so please take the time to get your paperwork done.

[dlsmadscienctist]

oh,

i have submitted everything online on the intel thing. But I am worried about the forms to be sent in the mail. It says that it must be received 12 days within fair date, so im assuming the last day of my fair which was the awards day.

Now do they mean be sent by 12 days after or received within 12 days?


-dlsmadscienctist

[dlsmadscienctist]

in addition to my other post I would like to know if there are any special awards for water pollution and water quality project?

What do the judges look at mainly? any tips?

I feel like i am at a disadantage because i did not put things like "sustainable development" etc on the finalist questionairre, do the judges look at that first?


-dlsmadscienctist

[mpphlipot]

I don’t have any knowledge about what special awards there may be for water-related projects. My suggestion is to look at the ISEF awards from the last couple fairs. There’s no guarantee that a special award from previous years would still be given out this year but it’s pretty likely.

In my experience as an ISEF judge, there isn’t any particular thing the judges focus on. The few that get selected for awards are truly outstanding in practically every way. One very important thing to be aware of is that a very large committee of judges discuss and select the grand awards by category. For example, the computer science category, one of the smaller ones, probably has a panel of 30 or more judges. The larger categories (engineering) have over a hundred judges. The kicker is that only 6-8 of those judges will actually be able to interview you with your project. This implies a couple of things:
- You need to really knock the socks off the set of judges that you get to talk to personally. You need to impress them so much that they can unanimously sell the rest of your category’s judging committee that your project is the best in that category.
- Your display needs to accurately and clearly represent your project since most of the judges will only have that (and the word of those that interview you) to go off of.

Best of luck!
Mike

[Terik Daly]

If the packet said received within 12 days, then it means received, not sent. If you have questions about this, I would strongly recommend talking with your fair manager s/he will be able to (hopefully) respond more quickly and will be be able to help you get things in on time. We're glad to help you here, but when it comes to things like getting paperwork in on time and answering paperwork-specific questions, you will get much more helpful advice and assistance from your fair manager.

Science Buddies has several great articles with judging tips in them. You can also look at the other topics in this and the other Forums. Here are a few of the Science Buddies pages:

http://sciencebuddies.org/science-fair- ... ging.shtml
http://sciencebuddies.org/science-fair- ... ards.shtml
http://sciencebuddies.org/science-fair- ... tips.shtml

I really suggest looking at this material and the other material on the Science Buddies website. In addition, you may want to look through the ISEF website (http://societyforscience.org/isef/index.asp). Here you will find the rubric judges use to evaluate, tips on making your display board, and other helpful information.

Good luck; keep the questions coming.

[dlsmadscienctist]

It seems that I will have to redo my board due to the dimensions.

I'm probably going to get it done at a printing place, so do you think a trifold is better? Or should I stay with my one fold?

Since my project is in the environmental sciences: water quality and pollution, should I change the color scheme to make it fit with a greener Environment?

Based on your experiences, what size board/ the appearence of the board/ attraction of the board, did you like best ? or which board had more success?



Thanks,
dlsmadscienctist

[Terik Daly]

dlsmadscienctist,

How you design your board depends on several factors, including how you are going to transport it to ISEF, the facilities you have to print, the amount of time you have to prepare it, and your budget for the board. Your color scheme can be whatever you choose; I don't think that choosing a green color scheme is going to do anything to make your project seem more environmentally-related.

Based on your experiences, what size board/ the appearence of the board/ attraction of the board, did you like best ? or which board had more success?

The boards, while important, are not as important as your science. Boards of all different kinds have won awards. I personally used trifold boards made from foamcore for each time that I competed as ISEF and won numerous awards each time. A fellow student used a printed poster with a framework that kept it taught also won numerous awards. Thus, no particular design of board does any better than the others. What is important is that it contains the needed information about your project in an aesthetically pleasing, easy to follow manner. There has been a lot of discussion about this on Forums. You can look at topics in this Forum and in other Forums on the board for tips on this. Science Buddies also has helpful information on this in articles in the Competitions section of the site and in the Project Guide.

Let us know if we can be of additional help.