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Google Science Fair 2011
Google is holding a science fair online! If you're from 13-18 years old, and work either alone or in a team or two or three, you can enter. The prizes include scholarships, visits to major research institutions, Scientific American subscriptions, and LEGO products. The deadline is in April of this year, and I'm sure we'll see some doozies -- but none can compare to my elementary school masterwork of May 1987: "How Soil Affects Growth" shown below. (I did not win. You might argue that my attitude was not sufficiently winning, but I would argue that IT WAS RIGGED. I proved that plants in crappy soil don't grow...much...or something...which was definitely groundbreaking science in 1987. Monsanto, feel free to send me a check anytime.)
Google has put up a Rube Goldberg Machine video to promote the science fair, shown below. They've also posted an impressive sample project by Tesca, a high school senior from Oregon. The sample project deals with robots, health care, and artificial intelligence -- so there's no way I'm going to make a Soylent Green, The Matrix, Silent Running, Moon, or Coma joke here. None.
Find out more at Google's Science Fair site.