California State Science Fair, 3rd place in his category, junior division. Same project as at LA County, but with some additional work and data added since the last fair.
At the awards ceremony, they called up students by number not name, for both awards (1st through 4th place) and honorable mention. When I saw that he was going up — and not for honorable mention, but for an award — I was very happy. I was also relieved, because he had worked so hard on his project. And when he wasn’t named for 4th place, I was that much happier. Sure, 1st or 2nd would have been better, but the state level is much more competitive than the county level, and I had no real expectation that he would be recognized at all.
On the drive home, I told him that he wouldn’t have won anything if he hadn’t done a really good experiment, with a thorough scientific approach and very solid analysis. I also told him that he wouldn’t have won anything if he hadn’t been able to “sell” it to the judges during the interviews — to demonstrate that he knew the science and the analysis backward and forward and in depth, that an adult (e.g. his advisor, me) hadn’t done the work for him.
I was a judge in the Applied Mechanics and Structures category, junior division. As usual, I had a good, collegial group of fellow judges, including one judge with whom I’ve worked for several years. Our top two winners were unanimous choices for all of us, and for 3rd and 4th, it was a matter of voting the order.
During the awards ceremony, our 2nd place winner spied me in the audience, walked up to me, and thanked me personally for voting for him.
I also met with and shook hands with the first and second place winners of the LA County Science Fair, Physics category, senior division, both of whom recognized me walking around. I don’t think they won anything at the State Science Fair, but they were both very good and very deserving of being in the competition. (The 1st place winner was recategorized outside of physics.)