Google is having a science fair! No, really - if your teenager has a plan to convert live bees into toothpaste they can present their wondrous idea in front of the internet and our Googly overlords.
Chidingly, they don't want to know about my research into trolling with Justin Bieber - but not because it's not a good idea, and not just because I'm too old. It's because I'm Bad People. The competition is open the all the world's schoolchildren - except for the brown schoolchildren of Cuba, Iran, North Korea, Sudan, Myanmar/Burma, Syria and Zimbabwe. Presumably other untrustworthy races such as the Daleks are also excluded, the rules aren't clear. To my fellow Zimbabwean readers and friends, and others in the axis of not-liked-by-Google, let's keep the secret of moon babies to ourselves. The Americans can't have any.
Image courtesy of 4chan
Their loss. Perhaps they know that Zimbabweans don't much do science fairs - instead we have exciting engineering competitions where children get all sticky building bridges out of ice cream sticks and glue. The secret to winning is lots of glue. And re-enforcing triangles. And using compressive, rather than tensional structures. But mostly: lots of glue. But what am I talking about, they're Google, they definitely know that.
The competition opens April 5th, so start your hamsters on their regimen of sodium pentathol now and the rules prohibit feeding sodium pentathol to hamsters. They also prohibit the use of meat obtained from pet stores and human teeth (unless autoclaved at 121 degrees Celsius for 20 minutes). Quite specific, that rule about teeth. Entrants must be schoolkids between 13 and 18 in teams of up to three people. They'll need a Google Account and can sign up here.
Final judging will be on July 11th. Winners stand to receive a US$50,000 scholarship and their choice of experience from CERN, Google, LEGO or Scientific American, a trip to the Galapagos Islands with National Geographic Expeditions and a chance to work for LEGO MINDSTORMS R&D.; Which is all pretty awesome. Beats the crap out of the certificate I got for my bridge. Fifteen finalists will get token items and a trip to the Googleplex.
You're still wondering why they felt it necessary to have detailed rules about autoclaving teeth, aren't you? Me too. Keep that in mind as you watch this interview with competition judge Dr Marion Nestle.
Notice: This post is sponsored by the promoters of Google Science Fair
Created 2011-03-15 18:28:49 by strix and filed under stuff
Subscribe
