Not your ordinary science fair

Growing up my perception of the science fair was homemade volcanoes that would erupt a red mixture of baking soda and vinegar.  I don't remember if I took part in them, but this is what I imagined the projects would be like.  Until last week that was still my perception and then I spent two days at the Intel Science Fair in Los Angeles as a judge.  My perception has officially been shattered.  These high schoolers are the ones that you read about it the news as developing new cures to diseases or working on sequencing the genome.  The projects that I saw were so far beyond me that I had a hard time understanding what they were even doing.  You can read about the winners online and that's as easy as a Google search.  However, there were two things that I really enjoyed the simple elegant projects that were based on a simple concept and the passion of the students about what they were doing.  

One student proposed a design for a turbine to sit in the median of a highway and using the wind generated by passing cars it would power the lights on the highway.  He didn't design the whole thing, but he measured the wind speeds at different heights and proposed his idea for the amount of power such winds would generate.  It was such a simple concept and idea.  

I also met four individuals presenting three separate projects whose collective enthusiasm will stay with me forever.  One boy was from India, another was from Sri Lanka, and the two girls were from Utah.  They didn't all speak English as their first language but they clearly spoke a common language.  When they were all telling me about their projects they were literally dancing with excitement.  They shared the same look, the same tone, and the same passion.  It was beautiful to see and bear witness to.  Three of the four one prizes for their projects and I hope that all four will continue to pursue this passion.  

A short detour

I decided to go for a run this evening from my hotel (near Western Ave and Wilshire Blvd) up to Melrose Ave and out past the Paramount Studios.  I got a little lost, but made my way back to my original route.  From Paramount I went back towards Wilshire along Larchmont through some small neighborhoods.  The homes in these neighborhoods were gorgeous.  They reminded me of enormous mansions in Danville, Alamo, or Blackhawk with the classic style of the older homes of Rockridge.  It was an interesting time to pass through the neighborhood as it was apparent parents/spouses were returning home and the domestic help was heading home.  It certainly was hard to believe we were in the middle of such a large city and only minutes from downtown.  In the end I found out that my 4.7 mi journey ended up closer to 6 miles.  Not that 'short' a detour.

A class trip

I've been off the blog for a while partly for a lack of time and partly for a lack of topics.  Don't get me wrong the little man provides plenty of interesting things to write about, but that is a little too personal. 

 

Anyways I have started a new project that has me traveling weekly to LA and with the travel the blog topics are returning.  This morning I got to the airport to catch my flight at 7am and there was a gaggle of teenagers at the security.  There must have been about 30 or more of them.  I instantly had the same thought that probably everyone else at the airport had, "I hope they aren't on my flight."  Everyone else was right and I was wrong.  As they arrived at my gate at 610AM their chaperones informed them that they have until 630AM to be back at the gate, if they left the area they had to check in/out with a chaperone, and they had to roam in packs of three.  When they all disappeared the chaperones mused over how a number of the kids had just left their bags and walked off.  The group was boarding with the B or C group with unassigned seating (as part of Southwest's procedure).  After I boarded I watched all of the students board and move directly to the back of the plane as though it were a bus.  It was interesting seeing them in this moment of uneasiness.  Their chaperones told them to sit anywhere they found a seat, but the only available seats were middle seats and none of them would be able to sit together.  Someone said they couldn't talk to people they didn't know, because they (the teenager) were socially awkward.  Amazingly they all rose to the occasion and started asking to sit wherever they could.  In the end it wasn't that noisy or disturbing a flight, because they were all seated separately. 

 

The students were enroute to Catalina Island as part of a weeklong nature immersion program.  It reminded me a of a weeklong immersion program that my elementary school had where my 5^th grade friends went to the Marin Headlands.  I didn't get to go, because my family went to India for a month at the time.  My lasting memory of the trip that I didn't go on was of an infamous batch of garlic pancakes all my friends had courtesy of the chef at the camp.  I hope that the kids I saw today have memories that they remember when they are 35.