Congratulations to all our participants in the 2019 Synopsys Championship!

Congratulations to all the students (more than 1100!) who participated in the 2019 Synopsys Championship. A special Thank you to our sponsors and great volunteers for making the event successful. Stay tuned for the winners listing.

Volunteers are especially needed on Day One to help students get their projects checked in and ready for judging. Parents of students who are competing are very welcome to volunteer for any time slot on Day One. Please sign up on the Volunteers web page!

We’ll close the database at midnight on Thursday, Feb. 28. All the information about your project will be locked and no further changes can be made. So please run through a final check as soon as possible:

• Before Feb. 28, send any missing paperwork and procedure(s) to the person who requested it. Include your project number in the subject line of any message.
• Check the status of your project (Project Status button on the home page). After Feb. 28 any Incomplete project will move to FTQ (Fail to Qualify).
• Check that the title and student names are spelled correctly.
• Is the grade correct (first 2 digits of your project number)?
• Is the Field of Study accurate? This is your last chance to request a change.

On Feb 29 we’ll start printing documents, badges etc. for about 850 projects and 1100 students, which is why there can be no more changes to the database information.

Please register to be a Category Judge on March 14th at the 2019 Synopsys Championship. We need and welcome judges in all fields of study but especially need judges for Behavioral Science, Plant Science, Biochem/Micro, Computational Biology, Chemical/ Env Science and Engineering, Earth Science and Software Engineering projects. Category Judges should have a Bachelor’s degree in a technical field or in education (with a concentration in a technical field).

Bring a colleague! Let us know and you can work on the same team. The judging period is Thursday, March 14, from 11 AM to 5 PM with lunch included.  Both returning and new judges must register online at:

https://science-fair.org/database/judge.php

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].