Designing the Display Board

The Steps to a Successful Project (see below for engineering projects)

Title - You should have a large descriptive title. If you use a funny title you can have a subtitle that clearly explains what you were trying to do.

Problem / Question - State the reason or reasons why you are doing the experiment. It is helpful to state your purpose as a question you want to answer. What are you trying to find out?

Hypothesis - State your hypothesis. A hypothesis predicts what will happen in your experiment. Your hypothesis should be based on your research. Your experiment will determine whether your hypothesis is correct. Give a reason for your prediction.

Procedures - Describe everything you did to perform the experiment. The procedure you use affects the results. Be sure to identify your control and one or more controlled variables. These are essential to the success of your experiment. You should write the procedure as a list of numbered steps that you will follow to complete the experiment.

Data – All of the data you collect should be displayed in an organized data table. The data should also be analyzed – calculate averages and ranges. Show all the data in the data table, with a title, labeled columns, and the correct units of measurement.

Graphs - The data should also be graphed. Graph the averages, when appropriate for the data. Graphs should have a descriptive title and the y-axis should be labeled and show the correct units.

Conclusion - Explain your observations and describe how your data related to your question. Your conclusion should state whether or not the data agreed with your hypothesis. If your data did not agree, do not assume the experiment was a failure. Many times this situation provides an opportunity to discard an explanation, or to discover a new way of looking at things. The conclusion should also explain whether you think your experiment was accurate. Tell why or why not. Part of your conclusion may be suggestions for further experimentation. Explain how you could you improve this experiment

Abstract - Post a copy of your abstract on the board for the judges to read. This should be one page.

Engineering Projects

Design Objective - What are you trying to build? Describe what your device will be able to do.

Expected Outcome - How effective do you expect your device to be when it's finished. Set a goal.

Design - Explain how you build your device

Data - This is where you report the results of testing your device

Conclusion - Did you meet your objective? What was successful about your design? What was unsuccessful? How could you improve your design?

Abstract - Post a copy of your abstract on the board for the judges to read. This should be one page.