The
West Geauga Kiwanis Club is now
underway in preparing for the
2016 STEM Fair. STEM Fair
is an acronym for
science/technology/engineering
& math. Students from
West Geauga Middle School, and
Home Schooled in the WG School
District will be conducting
individual research projects of
their own choice as well as the
traditional mousetrap car and a
structural problem competition.
The
West Geauga High School &
Home Schooled in the WG School
District students will also be
competing with individual
technical research projects of
their own interest. In
addition, students may choose to
compete in math, architecture,
robotics, structure design and
the popular Junk Box War.
Kiwanis members will be visiting
the schools to register students
who wish to participate.
As you may recall, West Geauga
was one of only three high
schools in the country to
receive Intel's prestigious
Technology Award.
The STEM – Science
/Technology/Engineering/Mathematics -
FAIR
SPONSORED BY THE WEST GEAUGA
KIWANIS
RULES, REGULATIONS
AND PROCEDURES
PURPOSE:
The purpose of the STEM FAIR is to
provide a venue for students
to
engage
in a competition which will help them
focus on the scientific
process
and reward them for their efforts.
WHERE:
WestGeaugaMiddle
School
Gymnasium
SCHEDULE:
Doors open at 8:00 am
for Individual Project Setup
Math Competition begins at 8:00 (Math
competition is a 30 minute timed
test. You can show up to
take the test anytime
between 8 and 11:30 as your schedule
permits".)
Junk Box War
begins at 9:30 am
Judging of
Individual Projects begins at 8:30
am
Bridge and Helicopter competition
begins at 10:00 am
Judging of
Individual Projects should end by
approximately 11:30 am
Awards will be
presented post judging
WHO:
Students from:
WestGeaugaHigh
School
WestGeaugaMiddle
School
Home
Schooled in the WG School District
INDIVIDUAL
PROJECTS: Students must register their
entry forms with a
description
of their project
All projects must be signed by their
Science Teacher, parent or
guardian.
Only one student per entry please. No
group projects will be
accepted
for judging.
Student Project Exhibits must be setup
before 8:30 am,
Saturday
and ready
for judging. Students must be
present during judging.
PROJECT
DISPLAY: Exhibits may not exceed 24”
deep, 36” wide, and 96”
from the
floor.
The
exhibit must be sturdy enough to stand
on its own. Assume
drafts and
possible bumps during display.
SAFETY
CONSIDERATIONS: Do not display
anything that could injure a small
child or
could harm anyone who might touch it.
Do not display food of any type – use
pictures.
DISQUALIFICATION:
The violation of any rule may mean
disqualification.
JUDGING:
Two judges will review and evaluate
your Research Project. The
judges
are professionals and teachers in the
field of Science,
Engineering,
and Technology.
CRITERIA
FOR JUDGING: The following is a brief
description of the criteria
that will be used in evaluating and
scoring your Research Project
AWARDS:
First, Second and Third Place Winners
will receive Cash Awards, Metal and
a Certificate.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Rules
and Regulations
JUNK BOX
WAR INSTRUCTIONS
W.G. Kiwanis
2016 STEM FAIR
Saturday,
at the Middle School Cafeteria
The JUNK
BOX WAR is for Junior and Senior
High School Students only
Two or three students
only make up a team, (not less than
two and no more than three students) The competition will
begin at 09:30 sharp. If you are
late, you will lose valuable time, Your
Team Leader must register your team
before you begin. Each Team will be
given a Table Number where you will
find a box of "junk". All of the teams will
have identical "junk" in their boxes You will have two
hours to build a mechanism to carry
out a specific function. After two hours all
construction must end and the team
competition phase will begin. Each member of the
First, Second, and Third Place Winning
Team will be awarded a metal, a
certificate and monetary award An award will also be
given out to the most unique designed
mechanism.
Select a Scientific Research
Project of your own choice, such as in
the field of Biology, Earth Science,
Engineering, Environment, Aerospace,
Physics, Chemistry & etc. As an
example you might want to find out what
is the best adhesive or glue for use
with various materials such as glass,
metal, rubber, plastic, masonry and etc.
Research and run the necessary tests to
come to a conclusive outcome. Prepare a
display illustrating the procedure
followed in determining your
conclusions. You must submit an entry
form to your science teacher, briefly
describing your project with the
approval of your teacher, parent
or guardian, before December 2, 2012.
Samples of potential projects may be
found on the Internet or at the Library.
There is no charge for this entry.
Middle
School Special Event Competition:
Building
A Bridge for Strength
PLEASE
FOLLOW DIRECTIONS- THE BRIDGE CAN
NOT HAVE A DECK, A WEIGHT IS HUNG
UNDERNEATH THE BRIDGE TO DETERMINE
STRENGTH
DESCRIPTION:
Design
and construct a model bridge across a
20” span using only the supplied
sucker sticks and wood gussets which
will be held together using only the
supplied Elmer’s Glue. Using
materials other than those included
with the kit will result in
disqualification. The clothes
pins are for clamping only. The
finished bridge must have a minimum
clearance width of 4” and an overhead
minimum clearance of 5”to
allow the passage of a Lionel train.
The total overall size of the
bridge shall not exceed 5”in
width, 7”in height and 24” in
length. The deck of the bridge
must be supported by cross beams every
4 1/2” for the entire length of the
bridge, however, the bridge deck must
be omitted to allow load testing of
the bridge.
SUGGESTIONS:
1.
Use the sucker sticks for members
which will be in compression
2. Use the string for members that
will be in tension
3. Use gussets at every member
connection
4. Use spring clothes pins to clamp
members together when gluing.
5. Be sure
your bridge stays within all size
restrictions!
OBJECTIVE:
To build the
strongest bridge possible across the
20” span, satisfying the required
clearances
using only the
supplied sucker sticks and gussets.
The structural design of the bridge
will require
a thorough
understanding of stresses, including
compression, tension, torsion and
shear.
MATERIALS:
Supplies
- a kit containing the following:
66
sucker sticks
8 skew sticks
8 - 1/2” x 1/2” wood gussets, 20
- 1” x 1” wood gussets
60” of string
l – 2 fluid ounce container of Elmer’s
Glue
6 - Spring clothes pins
Building A Bridge for Strength
KIT
PICKUP:
Kits will be
available the week of December 16th
at your school’s office, held under
your name.
COMPETITION:
Each bridge will be
placed on a calibrated testing machine
with a span of 20 inches. Each
bridge will be tested using a 4” wide
x 12” long x ¼” thick wood plank
representing the deck of the
bridge. Weight will be added
until the bridge fails.
Deflection may not exceed 24% or
1 ½” or the
bridge will be considered to have
failed even though no structural
members have broken. Failure,
however, of any member of the bridge
will be considered by the judges as
failure of the structure.
The bridge supporting the maximum load
at the point of failure will be
considered the winner. The
judge’s decision is final.
BUILD A
RUBBER BAND
HELICOPTER TO REMAIN IN
THE AIR THE
LONGEST
This project involves the design and
construction of a Helicopter powered
by the use of only a
rubber
band. There are no restrictions on the
size or weight of the Helicopter, but
must be
constructed
only from wood, paper, card board, or
flexible plastic. The various
components
may be held
together with tape, thread, string,
wire or glue. Commercially available
propellers
or ridged plastic will not be allowed.
All of the items included in the kit
may or
may not be used, with the exception of
the rubber band, which must be used as
the sole source
of power!
THE COMPETITION FOR THE HELICOPTERS
WILL BE IN THE Wrestling Room.
Examples of Rubber Band powered
Helicopters are included to help you
in the design of your
craft. A
number of various designs of
Helicopters are available on the
internet under “Rubber band
Helicopters.”
Both the Bridge and Helicopter
Kits contain the required parts
and instructions to complete the
project. Only those items included
in the Bridge kit may be used in
the construction of the
Bridge!
You have a choice of competing in
only one of
the
competitions. The deadline
to register is December 6, 2013.
Applications will not be accepted
after this deadline!
All
students must register their
intent,
(NO EXCEPTIONS). The reason for
the deadline is to allow time for
us to prepare and deliver the kits
before the Christmas vacation.
This will
allow time for you to complete the
kit.
Check the box of your choice: The
price of each kit is indicated.
Individual Research
Project
No charge
Bridge
Kit
$6.00
Helicopter
$3.00
To register, simply return the
lower half of this sheet in an envelope
with cash or check to your Science
Teacher byDecember 6, 2013.
Please label the envelope: Attn. Mr. Ed
Kudasick,
Fair “Co-Chairman”.
Kits will be available for those
who have registered.
Name
(print)___________________________________
Amount enclosed $ ____________
PICK A PROJECT TO
STUDY – Select a project that you
are interested in and would like to
learn more about..
A project that as far as you know
has never been done. Originality
tends to win over judges.
DO A BACKGROUND
SEARCH – You need to learn as much
as possible about the subject before
you carry out any research. This
will help you come up with a
hypothesis, an appropriate method to
test your hypothesis, and help you
to draw conclusions about your
results. Be sure to include this
information on your display.
FORMULATE A
HYPOTHESIS – Include a paragraph or
two on what you feel will be the
outcome of your test. Your
hypothesis may prove to be wrong by
your test. This does not necessarily
mean that you have a flaw in your
results. Remember, the Scientific
Method requires that you must enter
a test completely free of any
pre-determined outcome.
DOCUMENT YOUR WORK
– Always keep good records in a
laboratory notebook. You need to be
able to prove that your results are
true and correct. Your notes should
show all of the procedures used and
the results of those procedures
documented, both good and bad.
Summaries and conclusions for each
experiment should be recorded in
your notebook.
DESIGN YOUR
EXPERIMENTS TO TEST YOUR HYPOTHESIS
– Design several experiments to test
your hypothesis using more than one
strategy. Use appropriate control
groups to act as a comparison. Do
not change more than one variable
for each test that you run!
RESULTS – Results
are the data generated by your
experiments. Always repeat your
tests to ensure reproducibility.
It’s best to use SI units of grams,
liters, meters, and etc. Be sure to
use a sufficient number of samples
in your test based on commonly used
statistics to avoid results based on
chance.
EVALUATE YOUR
RESULTS – Look closely at your
results to determine any
inconsistencies. Your results may
lead you to additional questions to
evaluate or approach by additional
tests. Judges are frequently
impressed by carrying your study a
step further.
CONCLUSIONS – Try
to decipher the information that you
have collected from your data.
Frequently there may be more than
one answer. Do you need to do
additional research based on your
results?
Research Paper
Research Paper: A
formal written presentation of
Research Project.
It should contain
the following:
Introduction- State your topic, your
hypothesis, what you hope to achieve.
Background- A general introduction to
the subject and why you chose to study
it.
Hypothesis-
A brief statement about what
you expect will be the outcome
Methods- Describe the procedure
followed to test your
hypothesis.
A person should be able to repeat your
test from your description.
Results-
Describe the results that you
obtained from your experiment with
photos, tables,
figures, and graphs
as well as your written description.
Discussion- Explain in detail how the
data supports or refutes your
hypothesis.
Conclusion-
Why was your hypothesis
supported or not supported.
Acknowledgments and References- List the
people and literature sources
utilized.
Project Display
Prepare a Project
Display- Your display board
should include the following:
Prominent title of Research Project
Include all of the information
discussed previously
Briefly summarize your entire project
in a logical sequence
Text
should be large enough to be easily
read
Use a
printer if possible
Use
photos, figures, tables, and graphs to
describe your data
Include items used in your tests, as
well as your Lab Notebook and Research Paper