If you’re a student between the ages of 13 and 18 with an interest in science, then grab your lab coat and get to work. Google is taking submissions for their third annual Google Science Fair as of today. They’ve partnered up with CERN, LEGO, National Geographic, and Scientific American to offer some truly amazing prizes that include scholarships, an expedition to the Galapagos, and a week shadowing a particle physicist at Fermilab.
To enter the contest, students just need to have a Google account and an experiment. The site for the science fair gives some guidelines that focus mainly on safety and not harming people or animals, both of which are very important. There is also a page on the site to give students inspiration on the type of experiment they may want to submit. Google even put together this video to try to light a fire and get some students excited about submitting:
Judging will be handled by an impressive team that includes representatives from LEGO, Scientific American, a number of doctors in various fields, an astronaut, and last year’s winner Brittany Wenger. She won for her research into improving breast cancer diagnostics by leveraging artificial neural networks and cloud computing. If you want to win this year, it’s going to take a lot more than some Diet Coke and Mentos.
Interested students, parents, or educators can get more information about the Google Science Fair at their website. Submissions are open until April 30th.
Go do some science.
- You can buy PotatOS, a potato-powered GLaDOS model
- The Watson supercomputer is going to college
- Science fairs = great. Child beauty pageants = terrible
