White House Science Fair, 2016 Edition

Ditto. I judge Science Fair competition (Emphasis is on the Scientific Process, rather than explicitly on the potential end product. Hence some of our winning projects are pure research, and have no evident practical value. Others have long-lasting results, even in the world of the parent trying to select the least expensive brand of batteries [That one won a National Competition] or a test to see which brand of disposable diapers actually holds more fluids in suspension before disposal [That one, too, won the same National Competition]) and the process of interviewing the students is one of the most important. We find that the tough questions are the ones the student DIDN'T discuss in the accompanying research paper, or logbooks. But those are the ones that will tell us whether the student did the work, or at least understand what the work IS.

OTOH, building test equipment, on the principle that every research lab has in-house techs who can and do cobble up weird equipment at the behest of the researchers, and that in no way detracts from the quality, nor originality of the research team's work, we have no rules about parents, or even hired professionals building the test equipment. What is required is the the student have done the research, designed and conducted all tests, analyzed and reported on ALL results (failures included) and drawn their own conclusions, supporting them with their results. The only way to be reasonably sure the STUDENT did all of this is to intensively grill them about the process. IF they can answer the questions that related to the peripheral considerations of their project, things the lazier student (or the disengaged student whose parents are doing the work) would not/might not consider, then they probably did the work themselves.

It sounds like this 13-year-old was definitely in the Did the Work Herself camp.

And I know plenty of students who can and have designed spud guns, even going so far as to do their own pressure chamber design analyses, then built them. I've watched the process, and been glad that I could testify to their character when some nitwit neighbor tried to sic the cops on them because they are dangerous.

What Rush Limbaugh calls "Low Information Voters" are, indeed, low information everything people, who can stifle creativity among our youth, where agile brains are more needed, better than an ignorant parent with a baseball bat.

My parents weren't ignorant, and did protect us (mostly by having a good relationship with the local police to begin with, so that the police would know, and listen to us, even as rural kids), and as a result, I seldom got in legal trouble for my experiments. And the times I did, it was mostly for not observing proper safety precautions.

But, sadly, a lot of that tolerant watching has gone the way of "zero tolerance" in USA society (I don't know about other societies, so I can't speak to/of them. Anyone want to weigh in?)