Science Fair

SFBayACM Supports Bay Area Science Fairs

ACM San Francisco Bay Area Professional Chapter supports regional Science Fairs in the region as part of ongoing community service programs. The Science Fair program showcases students who will become our future scientists, technology experts, engineers, and mathematicians. Regional competitions celebrate the achievement of middle and high school students in school and county Fairs, supported by their parents, teachers, and schools.

Through annual Fair competitions, hundreds of the area’s competitive students are challenged to go beyond their classroom studies to do independent project-based research. They work independently or in teams to address questions in the fields of Computer Science, Engineering, Environmental Science, Medicine & Health, Chemistry, Biology, and a half dozen other categories.

Regional Fairs are affiliated with the Society for Science & the Public, and produces winners who go on to compete and win in other state and national competitions, including the prestigious Intel International Science & Engineering Fair. But
whether or not a student wins, every student is celebrated and encouraged by the hundreds of other attending students, parents, teachers, mentors, sponsors, judges, and members of the public.

SFBayACM’s Council wants to encourage and support the students, teachers, and volunteers who make this happen. Especially, your Council believes that study and practice of computer science (CS) and/or computing engineering (CE) should be encouraged in the middle and high schools, with an eye toward empowering students to continue with this into college and later life.

SFBayACM has donated special awards to several regional Science Fairs. This year, $3400 in support and cash prizes which will be awarded to students who excel in projects related to CS/CE, or who effectively use these principles in projects from other fields, with some of the award presented to the winners’ teachers. To encourage wider involvement in the study of computing, additional awards will be made to middle school young women who explore this area through their projects.

See below for details on how you can help.

How You Can Visit The Fair

  • The 2020 Synopsys Championship is the regional Fair for Silicon Valley – Santa Clara County. It will be held on March 12, 2020, at the San Jose Convention Center, San Jose, California, with free public viewing is from 1:30 PM to 6:00 PM on March 12. Hundreds of students will compete in junior (6th – 8th grade) and senior (9th – 12th grade) divisions for awards and prizes in multiple areas of study. Fair participants are drawn from public, private and parochial schools in Santa Clara County.

For more detailed information, please visit http://science-fair.org/about-the-fair/

Call for Volunteers: Judges for Bay Area Regional Science Fairs ACM San Francisco Bay Area Professional Chapter Is looking for volunteer Judges the regional Science Fair. It’s easy and fun. You will spend less than one-day viewing students’
projects and talking to the students about their work. Your presence encourages Junior and Senior High students (budding scientists) to pursue careers in science and/or engineering.

  • The 2020 Synopsys Championship is a great opportunity to give back to grades 6-12 education. You can help by being a Special Judge and awarding SFBayACM’s prizes in CS/CE.

For details or to volunteer, please contact Tom Moran at tmoran@acm.org. Not sure if you qualify to be a judge? See the Special Awards Judges link for details.  Please pass this to any of your friends or colleagues interested in science and engineering education – every volunteer helps make this a great experience for all.

Rules for Winning The Special ACM Prizes The ACM San Francisco Bay Area Professional Chapter, locally representing ACM, the official international professional, technical, and educational society for the field of computing, presents a Grand Prize, Second Place, Third Place, and three Honorable Mentions in both the Junior and Senior Divisions: the ACM Bay Area Special Award for Outstanding Accomplishment in Computing.
Teachers who mentor award winners (other than Honorable Mention) will also be recognized. In addition, there will be two awards for Outstanding Young Woman in Computing, presented in the Junior Division. These awards, all with cash prizes, will be received for:

– The best projects in Computer Science and/or Computer Engineering, including entries in the Computer and Math or the Engineering categories …or…

– The best project/experiment in another category involving significant use of Computer Science and/or Computer Engineering skills, knowledge, and principles to accomplish the project goals. Students are advised that Science Fair engineering projects do not involve the scientific method or a hypothesis, but are instead applications of engineering principles and methods to accomplish a goal. The objective is to stimulate learning and exploring in the field of computing.

Computer Science and/or Computer Engineering projects will be favored for the grand prize awards unless in the sole opinion of the judges, the accomplishments and learning about computing reflected in a project in another category express at least a similar degree of computing involvement.

Computer Science and Computer Engineering will be construed broadly, to include not
only traditional CS disciplines such as novel I/O hardware, algorithm analysis, language or operating system design, but also broader areas such as:

– Robotics
– Gaming
– Website development and human interaction techniques
– Computer-controlled or
– generated media …

when said project substantially comprises the use of computer science and/or computer engineering principles, especially involving the design and implementation of computing software and/or hardware. Here are some examples:

– iPhone app for collaboratively playing a novel game
– a remote-control car that can display artificial intelligence by automatically performing navigating a course and obstacles without human input
– taking an old film where frames are out-of-registration (“jerky”) and automatically aligning them, making the movie much easier to watch

Projects in other categories can include any possible endeavor which involves significant use of computing to accomplish the project. Examples:
– biology experiment monitoring pond scum using a homemade sampling and measuring apparatus interfaced to a computer and controlled by custom software
– automated system for taking astronomical observations and automatically recording comets and asteroids, computing their position
– proving a mathematical theorem by software testing every possible condition

Preference will be given to the entries that involve the greatest amount of student-developed hardware and/or software, as opposed to pre-packaged hardware and software obtained elsewhere.

Students will be interviewed on what they have learned.  (Using a function library as a part of the student-developed software will not be penalized if the student understands the principles involved in doing so and if said function library is not substantially
the entire software project.)

Assistance from mentors, parents, teachers, websites, and others are welcome, provided the student actually performed, learned from, and understands the work and principles.

The Special Awards for Outstanding Young Woman in Computing will be presented to a junior-division young woman who meets the above criteria but does not otherwise win the Grand Prize.  (The runner-up prize will be awarded to a junior division young woman who does not win either the Grand or Second Prizes.)

Prizes for the Synopsys Championship (Santa Clara Regional Fair) Middle School (Grades 6-8) prize totals $1500 cash and at least 15 certificates

  • (5) Honorable Mention Student Awards:  $40 and Certificate of Achievement
  • (1) 3rd Place Student Award:  $100 and Certificate of Achievement
  • (1) 3rd Place Teacher Award:  $30 and Certificate of Achievement
  • (1) 2nd Place Student Award:  $200 and Certificate of Achievement
  • (1) 2nd Place Teacher Award:  $50 and Certificate of Achievement
  • (1) Grand Prize Student Award:  $340 and Certificate of Achievement
  • (1) Grand Prize Teacher Award:  $100 and Certificate of Achievement
  • (1) 2nd Place Student Award, Outstanding Young Woman in Computing:  $160 and Certificate of Achievement
  • (1) 2nd Place Teacher Award, Outstanding Young Woman in Computing:  $50 and Certificate of Achievement
  • (1) Grand Prize Student Award, Outstanding Young Woman in Computing:  $320 and Certificate of Achievement
  • (1) Grand Prize Teacher Award, Outstanding Young Woman in Computing:  $100 and Certificate of Achievement

High School (Grades 9-12) prize totals $1900 cash and at least 15 certificates

  • (5) Honorable Mention Student Awards:  $50 and Certificate of Achievement
  • (1) 5th Place Student Award:  $80 and Certificate of Achievement
  • (1) 5th Place Teacher Award:  $20 and Certificate of Achievement
  • (1) 4th Place Student Award:  $120 and Certificate of Achievement
  • (1) 4th Place Teacher Award:  $30 and Certificate of Achievement
  • (1) 3rd Place Student Award:  $200 and Certificate of Achievement
  • (1) 3rd Place Teacher Award:  $50 and Certificate of Achievement
  • (1) 2nd Place Student Award:  $400 and Certificate of Achievement
  • (1) 2nd Place Teacher Award:  $100 and Certificate of Achievement
  • (1) Grand Prize Student Award:  $600 and Certificate of Achievement
  • (1) Grand Prize Teacher Award:  $150 and Certificate of Achievement