School Project/Competition. Help me with a topic please!

[Sir Big Jugs]

There's this competition for the Swedish high schools and colleges in Finland. (About 6% of the population in Finland speak Swedish.)
I'm in the high school class.
You are to make a project (alone or in a group consisting of up to 4 people) that fits into one of the following subcategories:

-> Mathematics and Computers
-> Physics, chemistry and technology
-> Biology and environmental knowledge

The project may be done as a research project, a result based on experiments or an invention. A teacher, a brother/sister, a parent or a friend can be your supervisor.

All completed projects will be presented in an exhibition in February 2007. The competitors build up their projects (for example posters, models and demonstrations) a day before the exhibition. When completed, the judges will check out every-one's exhibition. Each project "team" has a time quota of ~3 minutes to verbally present their own project.

The prizes will be handed out the next day.

Prizes:
In the high school class, the total amount given out is € 1500, divided between
1st place -> 1000€
2nd place -> 300€
and3rd place -> 200€.

Also, some private persons will probably pay a little to the prize sum, making the money given out as high as 3000€!!!

Rules and judging:

1. A summary of about one page must be sent to them [organizers] at least two weeks before the exhibition.

2.The projects can be based on research research, illustrate a principle, describe an experiment, document technical constructions etc etc.

3. The project must be made ONLY by the team itself, but guiding is allowed.

4. The projects is to be shown on the exhibition with posters, diagrams, models and demonstrations. Every team is provided with a "black board", a table and electricity. All other tools for presentation must be brought by the team itself.

5. The projects are judges as follows:

-> Idea, (imagination, usability, important and doable in real life)
-> Presentation (planning, functioning, construction, design, etc)
-> Knowledge shown (clear isn't it)







So, I think I'll enter this competition, just for the fun of it. Who knows if I might win something...:hmm:

My question therefore is, have you got any suggestions for a topic? I've been thinking and thinking but haven't came up with anything.

Earlier topics in the competition:

Oil from waste
Electricity from the power of wind
RNA interference - a way to cure cancer?
Natural disasters
Energy-saving house

and much much more.

I will gladly provide you with additional information when requested!


Thanks for any suggestions,
Sir Big Jugs



P.S. This text has been translated from Swedish by me, so it isn't perfect...

[danlisa]

Hi Mate,

How about a presentation/demostration in producing & using bio-diesel.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biodiesel

It's fairly easy to setup a process to produce it & fairly easy to test it (model engines).

Making Biodiesel...
http://www.schnews.org.uk/diyguide/h...ebiodiesel.htm

The above link gives you an idea of what is needed, but you can scale it down for test purposes.

That said, you can just use chip fat that is filtered well + mixed with 25%ish standard diesel. This would be very easy to demonstrate.

[sonar732]

Originally Posted by danlisa

Hi Mate,

How about a presentation/demostration in producing & using bio-diesel.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biodiesel

It's fairly easy to setup a process to produce it & fairly easy to test it (model engines).

Making Biodiesel...
http://www.schnews.org.uk/diyguide/h...ebiodiesel.htm

The above link gives you an idea of what is needed, but you can scale it down for test purposes.

That said, you can just use chip fat that is filtered well + mixed with 25%ish standard diesel. This would be very easy to demonstrate.

Being from the Central USA, I agree with this idea! We have ethanol plants building everwhere and ADM is one of the biggest producers of biodiesel. I don't know what the EU community is like regarding diesel, but you can also recycle old cooking grease for fuel in the USA.

[Yahoshua]

Health and foods: How agricultural pesticides and hormone additives are poisoning society.

That's a hot one for a topic.

[fatty]

All I can say is go for it. I love little contests like these. I have amassed a small fortune over the last year writing about defense topics for essay contests hosted by local universities and other institutions.

Try to find something completely practical and unique. Think about the major problems in the world and how mathematics, physics, chemistry, or biology can help them. E.g., using hormones on growing carrots is a fun experiment but has been beaten to death. Biodiesel is a good one because of the whole fuel shortage thing.

I tried to do a biology thing like this in high school. My proposal was titled Electrically-supplementing Neurons to Improve Reflexes and involved dicing open some leeches and juicing them up to batteries. It never really got off the ground.

But good luck to you!

[TteFAboB]

How to almost perfectly translate Swedish to English.

[ASWnut101]

Or Mongolian into Portugese.

[Dowly]

Or ChokerSandwich to Sir Big Jugs.