Science Buddies: "Ask an Expert"

Hello, my name is Kierston and I'm in Grade 8. For two years in a row I've won the school science fair and went to the regionals. I wasn't close to winning the regionals last year but almost won this year.
What I found out is most of the projects that won were ones where they built this machiene to conduct their experiment (I hope you get what I'm saying!). An example is my friend did one on what light bulb is better and what they did was they built a machiene where they put the light bulb in the socket and he had this device to find out how much energy is being used.
My project was just a experiment with gases (which was very hard!) on Global Warming and someone else did one on Global Warming but they won because they built a machience with a fish tank and used a type of calculator to find what gas absorbes the most sunlight.
What I need help with is a project for next year when I'm in Grade 9. I know my next school science fair is next March (About a year away!) but I want a good head start so next year my project will be better than ever! From what I wrote down, do any of you guys know of any projects for a high school person like me where you build a machiene to do your experiment? I hope you get what I'm saying!

Thank you

Kierston

You might be looking at it backwards from the way the judges evaulated the projects. The basic science in the winning projects were probably interesting and had a significant scientific content. It really wasn't about the machine, it was about the science.

Engineering demonstrations of machines tend to do poorly at most science fairs because they lack the novel, new, or interesting science experiment.

Find some science topic you are interested in working on and then think about how you can formulate a scientific investigation into something that requires some measurement aparatus.

Smear998,

If you don't mind my asking, what regional fair were you competing in? The judging criteria for each fair differ, so I won't be able to provide specific advice for you until I know which fair you are going to be competing in. My next question is whether or not this fair is Intel ISEF affiliated. (If you don't know what this means, your fair probably ins't affiliated.)

If you can answer these questions, I'll be better able to help you.

I live in Canada and I went to the 21st Aunnual Central Newfoundland Regional Science Fair 2007 in Grand Falls-Windsor, Newfoundland. And I think I've heard of the ISEF but I'm not sure if that's linked to that.

Smear998,

From what I've been able to find out about your fair, it looks like the judging criteria are pretty standard: it's not about inventing a new tool, it's about identifying a problem, making qunatitative measurements related to that problem, and drawing conclusions about that problem. The best advice I can give to you it to collect lots of quantitative data. Don't repeat your experiment three or five times, repeat 15 or 20 times. Then, carry out a meaningful analysis of your data. The data collection and data analysis portions of the science fair project are where I have found many students to be lacking. Collect a bunch of data, analyze it thouroughly, and you'll be on your way to winning!

Thanks for all your help! You guys are the best!