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WY Teen Cut From Science Fair For Entering Too Many
An anonymous reader writes " A Wyoming high school student who built a nuclear reactor in his dad's garage was disqualified from the International Science and Engineering Fair this month on a technicality.' His crime: competing in too many science fairs."
He won't lose any high school credit because he wasn't able to compete in his nth science fair. But just think how good his resume after college will read when it says that he was disqualified because he entered too many science fairs in high school.
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People who take an "unusual" interest in knowing things are dangerous.
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
Almost anything is a nuclear reactor if you play with the definition. There are isotopes decaying in my thumb right now. It's a nuclear reactor. I seriously doubt these things are producing net energy beyond curiosity wattage. You can probably do some interesting betavoltaic stuff that would generate power at the cost of $50/milliwatt. If you tried to scale it up and generate any significant power, the Feds would eventually find you... probably. I've often wondered if anybody has set one up for "off grid" power. I think there's a 50-50 chance that one back-woods dude is powering his cabin on a huge parcel of land somwhere where it woudln't attract attention. Dangerous as all get-out though. It's so much easier just to use wood stoves, solar panels, etc.
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
Farnsworth Fusors are fusion reactors that aren't net energy positive. They're just fascinating.
The kids who build fission reactors aren't building them on a large enough scale to risk harm to anyone but themselves. By way of analogy, anyone can make a model rocket engine out of firecrackers, at the risk of blowing their fingers off. Making a solid rocket engine that can boost something into orbit an entirely different story.
That has nothing to do with this story at all. He entered different lower-level competitions with the same entry in order to maximize his odds of making it to the next level. The problem with allowing this would be that to even the odds, everybody would have to enter every competition, where the same set of projects would be re-evaluated over and over.
We can achieve fusion without too much trouble. The elusive white whale so far has been a sustainable fusion reaction that puts out more energy than you have to put into it.
The Farnsworth–Hirsch fusor is decades old, relatively easy to build (I know someone who built one in his garage), available commercially (as a neutron source) and is generally considered to be not a candidate for fusion power.
Given that the name of the student is Conrad Farnsworth, I have to wonder if there is a family connection, but the article does not go into that.
This right here, TFS is so distorted. He didn't make it past round 1 in his state, so he jumped the border (with his schools's permission) in order to try again. They had rules against this for a very good reason.
Hold up, wait a minute, let me put some pimpin in it
The summary makes it look like he is being held back by bureaucracy, while he's really just using it. He entered ONE project in many fairs. Each of these fairs were lateral contests in a larger competition. Effectively he entered multiple times in the over-all road to the International Fair.
What he did would be like a NCAA team losing in March Madness multiple times, only to move position in the bracket, to try again on each defeat. Sorry, I couldn't think of a car analogy.
The kid was taking the same project to different fairs after failing to qualify. Nothing is stopping him from doing Science. He was more interested in being successful. He wasn't doing this so he could "do more science". He was doing it so he could basically enter more times, giving him an unfair advantage. Say I ran a science fair for a bunch of inner city kids. They worked really hard on their projects. When time for judging comes up, some AP, college-bound kid with a rich ( anything white-collar, to these inner city kids) dad comes in with his garage-built project. He didn't qualify in his home town, but blows these kids out of the water. I would be livid.
However, by seeing the way he plays ball, we know he will fit right in in Academia.
That's not quite accurate.
He went to the science fair in Wyoming, conducted by the University of Wyoming, which is a 'State Level' fair. He didn't place.
His school also attends a 'Regional Level' fair, sponsored by the South Dakota School of Mines. He did place at that one.
He get disqualified from the International Science and Engineering Fair because he went to a regional fair after attending a state fair.
If those two events had simply happened in the reverse order, he would have been fine. It's not his fault the two events are scheduled the way they are.
Also, his town is only 3 miles from the South Dakota border, so it's not like he crossed five states to try to cheat the system. For all we know, students who live in South Dakota attend his high school.
If you think I voted for Trump because of this post, you're wrong. I voted for Dr. Jill Stein of the Green Party. Again.
Farnsworth Fusors are fusion reactors that aren't net energy positive. They're just fascinating.
Good News, Everyone! My latest reactors are getting much better now, and yes - yes, they ARE fascinating!
-- You are in a maze of little, twisty passages, all different... --
That's the kid's own website, right?
No, it's not. You may have been confused because his name is Farnsworth, which isn't a particularly common name; as another poster said, it would be interesting to know if there's a family connection with the Farnsworth the fusor is named for. Fusor.net, AFAICT, is a site run by and for fusor hobbyists, people who like to tinker with the kind of machines this kid built.
And for those who are saying "Oh, he just downloaded some tutorials off the net"--well, if you could or would have done something like that as a teenager, good for you, but most people couldn't or wouldn't. It's not groundbreaking research, but putting together a working fusor is a pretty neat accomplishment for a high-school kid.
The correlation between ignorance of statistics and using "correlation is not causation" as an argument is close to 1.
Nope, fusion is right. If I recall correctly he built a 'fusor', a type of fusion reactor that does not even come close to producing more energy then you put in, but does preform the actual reaction. Quite a few people have been building them as hobby projects, though I believe they are also being looked into as a way of producing medically useful isotopes.
It does not take talent to waste power.
It takes talent to build a fusor from scratch.
It takes talent to build scintillators, or even use existing one, to get a spectrum from your reaction to know the exact reactions that are occurring and in what proportions.
It takes talent to keep yourself safe using such a device.
It take drive and motivation and a damn side more vision than most people have to attempt such endeavors. This is the Hello World for a nuclear physicist and I encourage such behavior.
If all you can see is someone "wasting" electricity I think you've missed out on a much larger picture.
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