20 most impressive science fair projects of all time
These bright students are proof that you don't have to be an adult to have amazing, world-changing ideas about science.
Photo: richardmasoner/Flickr 
With a budget of only $3,500, Michigan high school student Thiago Olsen built a nuclear fusion reactor in his garage when he was only 15 years old. How did he do it? He studied physics textbooks, used vacuum pump manuals, and surfed the Web for the best deals on parts. While his device is not self-sustaining and produces fusion only on a small scale, it's a pretty impressive feat for any teenager.
Many a science fair project involves LEGOs, but few on the level that Anna Simpson's does. Her robot, built of the plastic blocks, is capable of sniffing out toxic chemicals and other hazards, keeping humans at a safe distance. Simpson's work won her the California State Science Fair and could have a number of industrial and public safety applications if adapted.
Plastic that is simply dumped into landfills can take centuries to decompose, if it ever really does, but this young thinker came up with a better way. Burd beat out leading scientists to discovering a microbe that eats plastic, increasing the rate of decomposition by more than 40 percent. This project won him the Canada-Wide Science Fair and garnered a fair amount of international media attention as well.
At just 14 years old, Lauren Hodge is getting a jumpstart on a science career with this amazing project, which won her an award at the international Google Science Fair competition. So what did she find? Some chicken marinades block carcinogenic compounds from forming when chicken is grilled — a process known to raise the level of carcinogens in meat. Among the marinades she tested, lemon juice was the most successful, so consider these stellar findings the next time you're hosting a backyard BBQ.
Taking top prize at the Google Science Fair, Bose will get to spend several weeks studying marine life in the Galapagos Islands. The work that netted her this prize is awe-inspiring, especially coming from a teenager. Bose uncovered a number of problems with popular ovarian cancer treatments and drugs, producing a report that would be more at home in a medical journal than a high school classroom. Hopefully, this will influence some changes in how treatment is doled out to suffering patients.
Slow computers are the bane of every office worker's existence, but with the work of Kevin Ellis, an unresponsive machine may be a thing of the past. Rather than upgrading computers with more memory, Ellis has developed software that analyzes how programs are running and spreads out their needs over all the CPUs to make everything more quickly. His amazing software netted him $50,000 and the rest of the world a way to speed up computers that may have otherwise been tossed out.
Despite his name, this young genius chose Harvard over Yale to continue working on his education. Part of what got him there, undoubtedly, was this impressive bit of science. Yale's research project, titled "Adiabatic Quantum Algorithms for Boolean Satisfiability" analyzed the applications of quantum computing for solving some of the most complex and difficult computational problems. Most adults don't have half an idea what that even means, so it's all the more impressive that this teen was already studying it in high school.
These two teens have come up with an amazing way to do research on climate change. With a budget of $5,000, the pair built an underwater rover designed to take on the challenges of some of the harshest conditions in the world — like those at the Antarctic Circle. Equipped with a camera, the device can explore and take measurements, and is currently being used by the University of California-Santa Barbara to study marine life.
South African Luke Taylor submitted this amazing project to Google's Science Fair, which lets humans communicate more easily with robots. His software translates the English language into code that the robot can then understand and execute — allowing just about anyone, anywhere to program one to perform a variety of functions. Even more impressive? Taylor is just 13 years old.
It's hard to believe that this awe-inspiring science project came from the mind of a 14-year-old. Hooking his brain up to an EEG scanner, Srinivasan worked to test out a new method of improving mind-controlled prosthetic limbs. He found that data from the EEG could help with data classification and signal processing when using them, providing a better and more efficient user experience.
This bright, young rising star in the scientific community came up with some ingenious software for helping spacecraft move faster and use less fuel while navigating many obstacles in the vacuum of space. Her amazing software won a substantial award from the Intel Foundation, and more than likely will help ensure her a future career at NASA.
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Comments
I'll bet not one of these people is down protesting on Wall street right now.
Most valuable for inspiring kids to careers of the future.
Thinking now to use this to inspire kids on a community level for science & engineering via "Kids Are Our Future" campaign. My Tweeter ID: waldenthreenet
By the way the first one was a Fission reactor not a fusion reactor. A nuclear fusion reactor would have won a Nobel Prize, regardless of budget
According to the Popular Science article on Olson, it was a fusion reactor. However, it did not produce net energy economically. That is what they are working on at LBNL and other places. If it really did produce net energy, then you are right he would win a Nobel prize and makes lots of money. But as it stands now it takes enormous amounts of energy to overcome the Coulomb repulsion between two nuclei and you don't get that energy back. It is very difficult to recreate the conditions in.... More
In fact, producing net energy has been achieved. The problem is, only for seconds or minutes at a time (I can't remember which.) The ITER fusion project is the next step, and should maintain a fusion reaction for many minutes, greatly increasing the output. But we're a way off building a constant fusion generator. Not too far off, I hope :)
I love the statements "with a budget of only $3500" and "with a budget of only $5000". Seriously you put an only in front of those? How many high school students have access to even $1000 to spend on a science fair? I'm guessing most have around $100-$500 at most meaning that these other students had roughly 7 to 35 times the amount of money to do these projects. Most of these projects at least require access to a very good computer and good software to go with it. Wake up people! The.... More
"Wake up people?" I didn't realize that you alone were the enlightened bell ringer for economic inequality. If you want more money to go to schools, start a fund or run for congress. People fighting on the internet will only advance society so far - eventually someone is going to have to actually go out into the world and take action.
one of the most impressive aspects of this report is that the three top winners in the Google competition were women...fantastic....
i would love to talk to taylor wilson about his work...homeland security really would not fund some of us to design and make detectors that could detect radioactive materials in port cargos..
I knew Anna Simpson for quite a while. We were in the same piano class. Interesting just randomly seeing her in a random list I found on Stumbleupon, hah :)
I love when I come across friends and acquaintances that way.
Do you still play piano?
Hopefully we have a bright future. If only more parents harnessed their child's intelligence versus letting them squander it on video games and mindless TV. I'm still reeling in the fact that our math and science scores are so low compared to other countries... So grateful to see great minds working!
A big thing to consider when saying that "our math and science scores are so low compared to other countries" ... yes, this is true, but the United States is one of the few countries in which education is mandatory and by law a child can not be turned away from school. Meaning we get children who will do absolutely nothing with science in the rest of their lives and who have zero interest in the field, who are taking these standardized exams and skewing the results. Other countries that we.... More
