Science Buddies: "Ask an Expert"

I am participating in a science fair and I need your advice. I am making a simple accelerometer and I need a little help on making some changes to it and a simple soil moisture sensor so I do not get disqualified for plagiarism. Any advice?

Hi Matthew,

Sorry for the delay in replying. Can you be more specific? Do you have an existing design for an accelerometer and/or soil moisture sensor circuit that you are using? For example, Science Buddies has a soil moisture circuit project here:

https://www.sciencebuddies.org/science- ... erve-water

If you used that circuit in a project, it is not necessarily plagiarism just because you used that exact circuit design (assuming you cite the Science Buddies project). But you would be expected to use the circuit in your own original project (collect your own data etc). This is true for many electronic circuits and programming projects in general. People re-use each other's circuits and code all the time, but it is always important to credit the original authors/designers. If you JUST build someone else's circuit design but don't do your own experiment with it, that is probably not sufficient for a science project. If you build someone else's circuit design and do not credit them at all, that is plagiarism. Does that help?