Science Buddies: "Ask an Expert"

What exactly makes for a suitable science fair project? Last year my son did the traffic safety gloves and didn't even place in the science fair, which was very shocking and really hurt his heart. This year he would like to do "flippy the dancing robot". I'm curious as to if this is a good option and what makes this a science fair project idea (only asking because a child told him that he may not have placed last year because his project was more of an invention instead of a science fair project)?

I have always been told that a good science fair project should always have a testable hypothesis and data you can measure.

If you're looking for concrete guidelines, I would suggest checking the Science Buddies project guidelines: https://www.sciencebuddies.org/science- ... ience-fair
As Kopinski476 said, you should have a testable hypothesis and measurable data, which means an independent variable (something you change) and a dependent variable (something you measure). I hope this helps!

Hi M0m_of_3,
In addition to the other posts and their great suggestions, I would suggest that you check with the science fair and see if they have a specific rubric that's used to evaluate the experiments. This info should help figure out if "flippy the dancing robot" is a good fit or not.

Good Luck and please let us know if there's anything else we can do to help.
Willey