ISEF was quite a trip. Nowhere near as fun as Detroit was 2 years ago though. =/ Five kids from Plano were there: Me, Kevin, Alice, Paul, and Andrew (,who almost never chilled with us).
Saturday. Not much happened. We arrived around 5:00ish, ate at Joe's Crab Shack, then bought groceries for the week. It was a lot hotter than I'd anticipated; equivalent to Texas heat.
Sunday. We went and registered our projects, and found that we had an SRC violation- that's like the ultimate science fair sin. We'd marked our project as a first-year study, but they looked at some of our previous work and couldn't tell how it was different. So we had to schedule a meeting and argue our case in front of these 2 judges. There's a time limit of 15 minutes in which you have to convince them of your position, otherwise your project gets disqualified and you may or may not have to go home. We kinda negotiated, and I think they let us slide if we labelled our project as a continuation. It was weird though, cuz then half of our paperwork labelled us as a continuation and half otherwise. Oh well, whatever. then we went to set up our boards. It went pretty quickly cuz I'd brought my power screwdriver. Later, we found out we had more violations... huge pain in the butt. Cuz of that, we were late getting to the Student Exchange- it's the first real chance we got to exchange pins (a tradition) with kids from other states and countries. It was probably the most fun event of the week. They also put together this room with free arcades, karaoke, ping pong, foosball, and networked computer games; they called it the Digital Dugout- this was the best place to chill. We stayed there for hours. It started raining really hard as we were gonna head back to the hotel so we made like makeshift ponchos out of garbage bags- it was hilarious!
Monday. After it rained, it turned cold really quickly. Alice hadn't brought any winter clothes, so we went to the mall. An amusing little tidbit: the mall there had a Walmart connected to it, hahaha- I thought that was hilarious(ly ghetto). Anyways, I bought a discount sweater from the GAP for 5 bucks. I normally don't shop at the GAP, but I figgered, what the hey? I got 5 bucks to blow... That evening was the opening ceremony. It was really crappy. First of all, the dinner was organized very poorly- it was like a buffet kinda, except the food was spaced out across a stadium filled with a massive crowd. Then a mini-ceremony, and then a semi-concert. They'd given us these pens that light up and doubled as glowsticks, so that it was quite amusing. Left the party early, played cards, ate junk food in my hotel room. Note to self: dried jello doesn't come off of stuff very easily.
Tuesday. We went to Churchill Downs (where they run the Kentucky Derby) to see the track and stuff. We took two different tours. I was never really into horse racing or anything, but it turned out to be okay. I picked up a bunch of trivia facts about the sport. There was this 3D panoramic movie that was pretty cool. We took some really funny pictures at the (horsey) museum, but they might not have turned out so well. =/ At night, there was another welcoming event; they had us watch a minor league baseball game- sooooo boring, hahaha. And we saw some Japanese guys that we'd met 2 years ago in Detroit: Aki and Dais. I was surprised they remembered us... or maybe they were faking just to be nice, I dunno, hahaha, but it was cool.
Wednesday. There was a mix-up regarding a brunch that we thought we'd get but didn't, so we had to figure lunch out for ourselves. We ate at a restaurant with super slow service, so we had to rush to make it on time for the judges interviews (the actual competition part of this week-long event). Judging was separated into 2 rounds with a break in between. We had NO judges during the first, so all of them were squished into the 2nd round, back to back to back to etc... It took us a couple judges to finally get into the groove, and deliver a smooth presentation, ack! We got a special judge who was really interested in our project, and later on, he brought around his buddies to listen to our gig. =) Then there was another break, then a round of unstructured judging- basically judges go wherever they want. We thought that a special judge was gonna come back and talk to us, but she didn't- grrrr... didn't get any judges at all. Left in a sour mood. They had a "mixer" that night. It was in a park, and they had this no-name band playing. It was quite a disappointment... this was supposed to be the highlight of the week.
Thursday. We watched an IMAX movie, Extreme. Man, soooo boring, hahaha... I think I was the only person in our group that didn't fall asleep (, but I was very close, haha). That night was the special awards ceremony. Kevin & I won the soils award from the American Society of Agronomy (ASA), YAAAAAAAAYY!!! =) The award was worth $1000- I was ecstatic.
Friday. I woke up with a headache, so I was in an irritable mood all day. In the morning, there was the government/colleges awards ceremony. They got really behind, so it took forever, and no one from our group won anything. I got so bored I started making origami cranes halfway through. I made 5 or 6 of them, and I was gonna trash 'em when I walked out, but some kids asked me for them, so I gave them away. Wasn't hungry at lunch time; felt like puking. I went to the convention center and took a nap on a bench. In the afternoon was the grand awards ceremony... where they actually give you a place. The tension was unbelieveable- my heart was beating like CRAZY. But alas, we walked away with nothing- how disgraceful. We were the only ones we knew who didn't manage to place. =( That basically ruined the rest of the trip. I thought there'd be another party that night, but nope, I was wrong. =/ For dinner, we went to a teppanyaki place called Shogun- it was pretty good. After that, it was back to the convention center to tear down our projects. Started handing out extra pins. On the way out, this Puerto Rican kid approached me and told me that I had "weird hair," and that it reminded him of a "Chinese hat or something." Haha, I didn't know what to say. We chilled in the hotel for the rest of the night. One of the guys we met wanted to see a kung fu demonstration, so he asked me if I could kick the ceiling. Not knowing that ceiling tiles are remarkably soft, pulled a jump kick and knocked a hole through a tile, hahaha, D'OH! Yea, that was pretty stupid- heh, hope they don't notice. =P
Saturday. We had KFC at the airport. We thought it'd be different, for some reason, since it is (or rather, was) Kentucky Fried Chicken... nope, we were wrong. Boarded the plane and came home at about 1:30.
Saturday. Not much happened. We arrived around 5:00ish, ate at Joe's Crab Shack, then bought groceries for the week. It was a lot hotter than I'd anticipated; equivalent to Texas heat.
Sunday. We went and registered our projects, and found that we had an SRC violation- that's like the ultimate science fair sin. We'd marked our project as a first-year study, but they looked at some of our previous work and couldn't tell how it was different. So we had to schedule a meeting and argue our case in front of these 2 judges. There's a time limit of 15 minutes in which you have to convince them of your position, otherwise your project gets disqualified and you may or may not have to go home. We kinda negotiated, and I think they let us slide if we labelled our project as a continuation. It was weird though, cuz then half of our paperwork labelled us as a continuation and half otherwise. Oh well, whatever. then we went to set up our boards. It went pretty quickly cuz I'd brought my power screwdriver. Later, we found out we had more violations... huge pain in the butt. Cuz of that, we were late getting to the Student Exchange- it's the first real chance we got to exchange pins (a tradition) with kids from other states and countries. It was probably the most fun event of the week. They also put together this room with free arcades, karaoke, ping pong, foosball, and networked computer games; they called it the Digital Dugout- this was the best place to chill. We stayed there for hours. It started raining really hard as we were gonna head back to the hotel so we made like makeshift ponchos out of garbage bags- it was hilarious!
Monday. After it rained, it turned cold really quickly. Alice hadn't brought any winter clothes, so we went to the mall. An amusing little tidbit: the mall there had a Walmart connected to it, hahaha- I thought that was hilarious(ly ghetto). Anyways, I bought a discount sweater from the GAP for 5 bucks. I normally don't shop at the GAP, but I figgered, what the hey? I got 5 bucks to blow... That evening was the opening ceremony. It was really crappy. First of all, the dinner was organized very poorly- it was like a buffet kinda, except the food was spaced out across a stadium filled with a massive crowd. Then a mini-ceremony, and then a semi-concert. They'd given us these pens that light up and doubled as glowsticks, so that it was quite amusing. Left the party early, played cards, ate junk food in my hotel room. Note to self: dried jello doesn't come off of stuff very easily.
Tuesday. We went to Churchill Downs (where they run the Kentucky Derby) to see the track and stuff. We took two different tours. I was never really into horse racing or anything, but it turned out to be okay. I picked up a bunch of trivia facts about the sport. There was this 3D panoramic movie that was pretty cool. We took some really funny pictures at the (horsey) museum, but they might not have turned out so well. =/ At night, there was another welcoming event; they had us watch a minor league baseball game- sooooo boring, hahaha. And we saw some Japanese guys that we'd met 2 years ago in Detroit: Aki and Dais. I was surprised they remembered us... or maybe they were faking just to be nice, I dunno, hahaha, but it was cool.
Wednesday. There was a mix-up regarding a brunch that we thought we'd get but didn't, so we had to figure lunch out for ourselves. We ate at a restaurant with super slow service, so we had to rush to make it on time for the judges interviews (the actual competition part of this week-long event). Judging was separated into 2 rounds with a break in between. We had NO judges during the first, so all of them were squished into the 2nd round, back to back to back to etc... It took us a couple judges to finally get into the groove, and deliver a smooth presentation, ack! We got a special judge who was really interested in our project, and later on, he brought around his buddies to listen to our gig. =) Then there was another break, then a round of unstructured judging- basically judges go wherever they want. We thought that a special judge was gonna come back and talk to us, but she didn't- grrrr... didn't get any judges at all. Left in a sour mood. They had a "mixer" that night. It was in a park, and they had this no-name band playing. It was quite a disappointment... this was supposed to be the highlight of the week.
Thursday. We watched an IMAX movie, Extreme. Man, soooo boring, hahaha... I think I was the only person in our group that didn't fall asleep (, but I was very close, haha). That night was the special awards ceremony. Kevin & I won the soils award from the American Society of Agronomy (ASA), YAAAAAAAAYY!!! =) The award was worth $1000- I was ecstatic.
Friday. I woke up with a headache, so I was in an irritable mood all day. In the morning, there was the government/colleges awards ceremony. They got really behind, so it took forever, and no one from our group won anything. I got so bored I started making origami cranes halfway through. I made 5 or 6 of them, and I was gonna trash 'em when I walked out, but some kids asked me for them, so I gave them away. Wasn't hungry at lunch time; felt like puking. I went to the convention center and took a nap on a bench. In the afternoon was the grand awards ceremony... where they actually give you a place. The tension was unbelieveable- my heart was beating like CRAZY. But alas, we walked away with nothing- how disgraceful. We were the only ones we knew who didn't manage to place. =( That basically ruined the rest of the trip. I thought there'd be another party that night, but nope, I was wrong. =/ For dinner, we went to a teppanyaki place called Shogun- it was pretty good. After that, it was back to the convention center to tear down our projects. Started handing out extra pins. On the way out, this Puerto Rican kid approached me and told me that I had "weird hair," and that it reminded him of a "Chinese hat or something." Haha, I didn't know what to say. We chilled in the hotel for the rest of the night. One of the guys we met wanted to see a kung fu demonstration, so he asked me if I could kick the ceiling. Not knowing that ceiling tiles are remarkably soft, pulled a jump kick and knocked a hole through a tile, hahaha, D'OH! Yea, that was pretty stupid- heh, hope they don't notice. =P
Saturday. We had KFC at the airport. We thought it'd be different, for some reason, since it is (or rather, was) Kentucky Fried Chicken... nope, we were wrong. Boarded the plane and came home at about 1:30.
posted by Dear Daniel at 2:53 PM
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