A Look At Intel ISEF 2004

crl620 writes "Just this past Friday marked the end of the 2004 Intel International Science and Engineering Fair (Intel ISEF). This year's ISEF took place in Portland, Oregon with more than 1,200 participants. Over $3 million was given out and three grand winners left with $50,000. Winning projects include a homemade Scanning Tunneling Microscope (STM) and a brain-computer interface for the muscularly disabled. My picture diary of this huge event can be found here."

Comments

damn

[fresh27]

i made battery out of a lemon and some pennies, but i didn't get past the first round.

Re:damn

[Anonymous Coward]

i made battery out of a lemon and some pennies

It's all in the presentatation. Think of the scientific mileage Pons & Fleischman could have milked out of that lemon.

Re:damn

[J1VE TURK3Y PUNK]

Then I went to the Reed College Nuclear Reactor which was a neat open-pool reactor. We got to see the core and also see a SCRAM where they drive control rods into the core.

I hope he was wearing his metal cup shielding

Re:damn

[cujo_1111]

Milk and lemon, think of all the cool curdling that would go on!

Re:damn

[Profane MuthaFucka]

Did you consider compressing the helium? Compressed gasses take up less space, so you would have needed a much smaller envelope.

Re:damn

[nacturation]

Did you consider compressing the helium? Compressed gasses take up less space, so you would have needed a much smaller envelope.

Even more efficient than helium, a really light particle, is a total vacuum which has no particles. To make an efficient lifting device, you can figure out the amount of total vacuum you would need to lift 250kg. Essentially, you would need the equivalent amount as the displacement of 250kg of air. For sake of argument, let's say this is 250 cubic meters. The beauty of this is that a vacuum, having no particles, compresses down to nothing. In fact, you could compress 250 cubic meters of vacuum down to nothing and store it inside the object you are trying to lift!

This amazing technology was used by the Egyptians in building the pyramids and by whomever built Stonehenge. The object itself thus becomes its own lifting mechanism. Ever wonder why modern man has been unable to reproduce such engineering feats? They've been unable to harvest the power of compressible vacuums to move great masses. However, I have shared this new secret technology with you in the hopes that you too will build marvels of the Earth.

The trick, of course, is not to store too much compressed vacuum inside an object or it'll just float away forever. King Tut was really pissed when the engineers first made that mistake!

Re:damn

[deglr6328]

Some lame-o actually did this!! look at this kid's photo (second one down) of the project which he clearly marked "uncool" http://isef.syndetics.net/projects/. The person clearly didn't even understand simple oxidation/reduction potentials of metals. How dreadfully embarrassing when juxtaposed with >a href=http://isef.syndetics.net/projects/C%20-%20La st%20Years%20Winner.JPG>this.

Brain-Computer interface?

[cujo_1111]

Tinfoil hat time

A brain-computer interface for the muscularly disabled, this can only lead to bad bad things in the long term, especially with Intel owning the technology. At first it will allow disabled people to do stuff, then when disabled people are forced to contribute to society more they will be programmed to do more...

Don't the Borg use a brain-computer interface to network their people together to become one?

Re:Brain-Computer interface?

[gandalphthegreen]

Don't the Borg use a brain-computer interface to network their people together to become one?

The Borg aren't real. Yes I know you know that, but I think it's worth pointing out to put the tin-foil-hat arguement in perspective.

Re:Brain-Computer interface?

[3) profit!!!]

And imagine what would happen when somebody found an exploit...

Browsing through the pics...

[Serk]

Browsing through the pics I had one thought that kept going through my head:

Cool! Someone even geekier than myself!!

But than cold reality crept back, and pointed out that, while the taker of those picture might be geekier than myself, he isn't MUCH geekier than me...