Science Buddies: "Ask an Expert"

Hello,
I plan on writing a computer program that can encrypt/decrypt a cipher, or something of that general area. It seems that my teachers, want a question for science fair that follows this criteria...
What is the effect of ______________ on ______________.
However I cannot seem to find a question that would be suitable when writing a computer program. Is there an exception to the rule? if not, could you point me in the right direction?

Thank You,
Penguinlord

Hi,

For general help in framing a science fair project question you may wish to consult the Science Buddies Project Guide (see links at top of the web page). This guide has a whole section on choosing your question:
https://www.sciencebuddies.org/science- ... tion.shtml

This is a good place to start.

Your project sounds interesting. Have fun with it!\\

Best regards,

Barrett Tomlinson

I can see your teacher's point... the idea is to test the effect of some variable on something else. With a computer program, it could be tricky to come up with an interesting question regardless of how cool your program is. One thing that comes to mind is testing different computer processors in how fast they can execute your algorithm. Then, based on the processor features (i.e. multi-cored, memory cache etc, operating frequency) you can evaluate which specific features are best suited to run your program the fastest. So your question could be something like "does processor operating frequency have more impact than on-chip memory when running a program that does X".