Choosing a project is half the fun but can also be difficult. You don't need to choose a project idea from one of the lists below! Perhaps viewing some of these ideas, however, will help you come up with a novel science fair project idea.
We want kids to come up with more challenging project ideas this year. For example, no battery draining projects will be accepted for any kids past the first grade!
| Some Ideas / Examples |
| I want to build a bridge. Is a straight bridge or a curved design better? |
| What is the best material to put in a sandbag to block water, such as during a flood? |
| Do incandescent, fluorescent, and LED bulbs produce the same type of light? The same amount of heat? What is the relationship between the electricity required, light produced, and heat generated? |
| How tall can you build a tower using only a sheet of paper. You can cut it, fold it, crumple it, but only use that single material. What works best? |
| Compare the characteristics of a structure that is constructed using different materials. You can compare strength, corrosion resistance, elasticity... be creative. The trick is to make certain your measurements are truly comparable to each other. |
| What can you do with a swim cap to optimize its ability to decrease drag in water? Can you alter the shape? Does one material work substantially better than another? |
| Using Lego Mindstorms or another robot building kit, can I design a robot that detects a barrier and moves away from it? |
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| Science / Engineering Fair Project Ideas |
| List of Science Fair Project Ideas |
| Wizard / Questionaire That Helps Guide You To A Science Fair Project |
| Science Experiments in Your Basement |
| Car & Vehicle Experiment Ideas |
| More ideas from the University of Kansas |
| Engineering Project Ideas (Tinkering Guide) |
| Science Experiments Around the Home (Britain) |
| Best Kid Stuff (STEM online learning tools) |
| Dragonfire Tools - More STEM projects (thank you, Austin and Lane) |
| Construction and Building projects (thank you, Maddie) |
Computer Science Project Ideas
For kids interested in computer science, consider Lego Mindstorms robots. A project idea might be something like, "Can a robot be programmed to successfully navigate a maze?" The drawback to Lego Mindstorms kits is that they are expensive.
If you want to program your own robot for free, consider Robocode, an environment in which you can program your own robot tank to be intelligent enough to combat other computer generated robot tanks. A project idea might be something like "Can a robot tank be programmed to successfully elude and defeat the default tanks that come with Robocode?"
With either Lego Mindstorms or Robocode, kids will employ basic math, strategy and tactics to program their robots. |
