Need to improve cell phone spectrophotometer project

[starplayer132]

I was trying to do the cell phone spectrophotometer for my science fair project, but synopsis rejected the project saying that the quality is hardly 10th grade and it seems like a demonstration even though we looked at different food color dyes. They want us to develop a testable question "what is the effect of X on Y" (something to measure). I'd really appreciate any suggestions so I can do this project as the deadline is coming soon. Also, I'll need to somewhat change the project, but I can't completely change it as it was already submitted once.

[deleted-81235]

Hello,
That's a little odd because we have the project categorized as advanced, but you can try to use the Science Project Search found here: https://www.sciencebuddies.org/science- ... deas.shtml.

Also, you are measuring something in this experiment. You are measuring the effect of color on absorbance, which is used to explain part of Beer's Law (if you've taken chemistry). Beer's law exhibits that there is a certain wavelength of light that is absorbed the best by certain solutions based on the solution's color. Also, this experiment deals with the phenomenon of electromagnetic reflection, but I'm not that sure as to what you can do to change the experiment to measure something else because it already does measure something.

I'll post a link this in the Expert forum to see if anyone can help.

Sorry for being so little help.
-Meg

[kgudger]

Hello:

I'm not an expert in the biological sciences, but I am wondering if there might be extensions of this experiment that take into consideration the portability of the photospectrometer. In other words, are there applications that benefit because the unit is lightweight and inexpensive? Maybe some application in the developing world?

Along those lines, I looked at genotyping DNA with photospectrometry http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SNP_genotyping. Could this approach work in the field identification of genotypes? Genetic disorders? I'm assuming that in the future there will be a cell phone version of the analysis software.

These ideas, if possible, address the desire of science fair administrators and judges to have a socially relevant angle to your experiment. These are just some I ideas I came up with quickly. If you spend some time thinking about this and talking to people you can probably do better.

You could do the experiment on the Science Buddies site, and correlate the measurement of food coloring to dyes used to mark DNA.

Please let us know what you decide.
Keith