If your project is still Incomplete…

Take action if your Project Status is still Incomplete. You can’t participate if your project isn’t officially accepted, and we are waiting to wrap up about 40 projects now!

You should have received an email listing items that are missing 
or need more work. Address those items and answer any questions as soon possible: 

• Reply to whoever sent the message; that person has your paperwork.
• Include your project number in the subject line (so we don’t have 
  to look it up).
• Address all the details in the email you received.
• Include ALL the missing items.

Wait 2 days and see if your Project Status changes to Accepted. If it doesn’t change, please re-send your message. (We’d rather get two messages than miss one!)

Thank you – SRC

Regeneron Science Talent Search has announced the STS 2019 Scholars, who are the Top 300 entrants in this prestigious pre-college competition. 19 students from Santa Clara County schools have been honored, including 10 students who competed in the 2018 Synopsys Championship. The Scholars Book and details of the competition are available at the Society for Science and the Public.

Synopsys Championship volunteers will take a holiday break until January 2. The SRC reviewers are nearly finished with the backlog and soon we’ll start checking in the applications received after Dec. 1. (Thank you for your patience!)

• New projects will appear as “received” at Check Project Status  until reviews start again on January 9.
• If your project status is “received” or “pending” and the application was received by Nov. 28, it is waiting to be reviewed. A project that requires SRC pre-approval may not start until it is approved.
• If your project status is “received” and the application was received after Nov. 28, it will be handled as time permits. 
• If your project status is “incomplete,” you and your teacher/sponsor have probably received email outlining what is missing or incorrect. Please respond to the message, and we will handle your response as time permits between now and January 2.

Happy New Year!

Please register beginning December 1 to be a Category Judge at the 2019 Synopsys Championship Science & Engineering Fair, which will be held at the San Jose Convention Center on March 14, 2019. We need and welcome judges in all fields of study.

Category Judges should have a Bachelor’s degree in a technical field or in education (with a concentration in a technical field). We are looking for biologists, behavioral scientists, chemists, engineers, environmental scientists, physicists and others who will enjoy talking to enthusiastic young people about scientific inquiry and engineering challenges. Information about being a judge is linked to the Category Judging page.

Thank you for your patience as the Scientific Review Committee makes its way through more than 300 applications for review at the last deadline. It will take the SRC a while to review this number of projects, enter results into the database and then send messages if incomplete. Please be patient. Also watch your email for questions from the SRC reviewer about any Incomplete applications.

As of today (12/2), if your application is not listed as Received on the project status page, and you are sure that we would have had the project in hand by 11/28 for data entry and review, please send a message to fairmanager@science-fair.org.  Postmarked by 11/28 would not have reached us in time.

Projects received after the deadline will be handled in the order they are received.

On Saturday, Nov. 17, from 9:30-11 AM, a workshop for teachers that is strongly recommended for parents involved in Parent-Sponsored Projects will be held at Santa Clara University. The workshop will focus on project requirements, process and paperwork. (See rule #13 about PSPs here.)

The workshop will be at SCU in Lucas Hall (School of Business building) in Room 208.

Directions:
Santa Clara University is across El Camino Real from the Santa Clara Transit station.
Parking in SCU lots is free on weekends.
The address of Lucas Hall is 790 Franklin St., Santa Clara, CA 95050. There is parking at the nearby North Garage [1063 Alviso St. Santa Clara, CA 95050].

Please submit applications that require pre-approval as soon as possible.

• This allows time for an exchange of email about your application, if needed, to get it ready for review by the SRC committee.
• Projects that require pre-approval often require extra forms, especially projects involving humans. Submitting at the FINAL deadline may not give us enough time to resolve issues and get all the necessary forms before the final IRB review meeting on December 1.

The next deadline for projects requiring pre-approval is receipt by November 14 or with a postmark on or before November 9. The FINAL deadline for pre-approval is November 28.

We see many applications in the pipeline and look forward to receiving them soon!

Congratulations to the Synopsys Championship middle school competitors on their success at the Broadcom MASTERS competition in Washington, DC. 

• Engineering Award – First place: Alice Feng, San Jose, The Effect of Mushroom Species and Substrates on the Properties of a Novel Biodegradable Material: Mycelium
• Rising Star Award:  Sriram Bhimaraju, Cupertino, Low-Cost Archery Assistant with an Interface for the Visually Impaired

In addition to showcasing their projects for the public, the 30 national finalists also completed a rigorous competition that tested their STEM knowledge as well as critical thinking, communication, creativity and collaboration skills. First place winners were awarded an iPad and $3500 to support their choice of a STEM summer camp experience in the U.S.

In recognition of their promise as the youngest competitors, two Rising Stars won a trip to Phoenix in May 2019 as the U.S. delegate to Broadcom MASTERS International and Official Observer at the Intel International Science and Engineering Fair (ISEF).

See the press release for a complete list of winners. The Broadcom MASTERS (Math, Applied Science, Technology, and Engineering for Rising Stars) program is produced by the Society for Science & the Public and encourages middle school students to participate in science fairs, continue their studies in high school and college and enter STEM careers.

The deadline for applications being submitted for SRC pre-approval in November has been changed to Nov. 14. Your application needs to be in our hands by that date – either in the P.O. box or dropped off at 1275 Martin Avenue in Palo Alto. An application that arrives later must have a postmark on or before Nov. 9. The Scientific Review Committee and the Institutional Review Board will meet on Nov. 17.

A change in this year’s table of Application Deadlines has caused some confusion. Please note that the deadlines on the linked table are RECEIPT dates not POSTMARK dates. There is a footnote about postmark dates.

This change more accurately reflects how things work – it is important that applications arrive in SCVSEFA hands by the intended deadlines. (Express Mail to the P.O. Box and hand delivery to the Palo Alto address  have become popular means to that end.) A postmark date matters only when an application arrives AFTER the FINAL deadline – if it was delayed in US postal mail, the application will still be processed. There is just one exception: any project involving human subjects that misses the November deadline for the last IRB review.