This was in the newspaper today...

Well, sort of - I can't find it in any actual *print* edition - and - our lovely newspaper charges you for looking at anything online that is over a week old and in it's "archives" - so - I just copied what was on their website for your viewing pleasure!


Published: 03.05.2009
Science fair projects

Name: Savannah Sams
School and grade: Butterfield Elementary School sixth-grader
Project: Savannah, 11, is a junior drag racer and wanted to know how tire pressure affected her speed out on the track.
"Me and my dad wanted to do something together like this," she said. "It's really beneficial because what I know about tire pressure will get me down the racetrack faster."
Conclusion: She tested her tire pressure at five, six and seven pounds and determined that six pounds of air pressure produced a quicker time.
Final thoughts: "I thought the seven pounds would go faster," she said. "I thought they would have more traction to make you go faster."
Name: Jonathan Parras.
School and grade: Butterfield sixth-grader
Project: Jonathan, 11, used an old pair of tennis shoes to try to build a pair of hover shoes that would work using magnets and a battery.
Conclusion: He learned that sometimes you have to fail before you get something right.
"I found out that the hover shoes did not work," he said.
Final thoughts: "I learned that it would be hard to make hover shoes, but it's still fun to make them."
Name: Diego Abeytia
School and grade: Homer Davis Elementary School fourth-grader
Project: Diego, 9, wanted to convince his parents to allow him to play more video games by attempting to prove that people who play video games before a math test will get higher scores than if they didn't play video games.
Conclusion: He had six subjects play Guitar Hero on Wii for 20 minutes before taking a division and multiplication test with 100 questions on it.
Participants had three minutes to complete the test.
"All of them got higher scores on the test after they played video games," Diego said.
Final thoughts: Diego knew he did better on tests if he had played video games sometime before taking the test, but his parents still aren't buying his project's conclusion and won't let him play all he wants and when he wants.
"I can play video games, but I can only play them one hour a day," he said.
Name: Philip Brenton
School and grade: Homer Davis sixth-grader
Project: Philip, 11, built three camp-style stoves using recycled materials to find out if they were as efficient as those you can buy at the store.
"My family are big outdoors people. We like hiking, backpacking and climbing and so my dad helped me come up with the idea," he said.
Conclusion: As he'd hypothesized, the store-bought stoves boiled two cups of water faster than his homemade stoves, which he made out of cans.
Final thoughts: Philip said he learned his homemade stoves actually might be bad for the environment because they burned more fuel.
Name: Ethan Burch
School and grade: Homer Davis fifth-grader
Project: Ethan, 10, used a group of eight kids and 10 adults to try to prove children can hear sound frequencies an adult can't hear.
Ethan received help from his family to hook up an MP3 players to speakers so he could play 12 different sound pitches for his participants to hear, or not hear.
Conclusion: Ethan concluded that kids can hear higher-pitched sounds than adults.
"I found out that younger adults are closer to kids' hearing range and their hearing is less damaged than older adults'," he said.
Final thoughts: "I learned that kids can use sound frequencies as ringtones so teachers can't hear them, but if the teachers are younger adults they can possibly hear and you can get in trouble," he said.