String instruments are the very basis on music in may cultures. In this science project we try to make a miniature string instrument by turning a matchbox into a guitar. It is not quite as difficult as it seems as we will be making a traditional acoustic guitar and not an electronic one.

In the old guitars the sound of music was produced by the vibration of the strings. the sound was then modulated by the hollow body of the guitar. That is why the huge Spanish Guitar was said to have a good sound as the hollow allowed the vibrations to achieve a true note. Now what all will you need to make the matchbox guitar?

A matchbox with its matchsticks emptied out. A set of four rubber bands all of which must have the same length. A small piece of balsam wood that can be used as the bridge of the guitar to give the strings some tension. And we are ready to construct our matchbox guitar. Now place the bridge piece of wood on the empty matchbox and open the matchbox one third of the way.

Put the rubber bands over the matchbox and the bridge and now make the bridge stand vertical to the matchbox. This will bring some tautness in the rubber bands.Now if you need them to be tighter just open the matchbox some more and you are ready to pluck away at the rubber bands and make music. Simple science projects can provide hours of fun.

We live in the environment and we don’t care for it. There are science projects that tell us that we are damaging the environment beyond belief. That creatures big and small are going extinct faster than ever before, but does that stop us? No. Does it make us feel that we need to do something to remedy the situation? Yes.

Unfortunately most of us feel strongly about the environment and its protection but do nothing to support those feelings. The few who do manage to get involved in rallies and protests do so for a short time and do not really have a large impact in solving the gigantic problem. So is there no solution? Of Course there is.

Some one truly focused on a specific problem can do more to solve it than a person worrying about the whole environment in general. For instance the population of Dalmatian Pelicans in Europe has increased thanks to hunting bans and setting up of new natural reserves where the birds can flourish.

The truth is that we are not going about tackling climate change the right way. The proper way to get results for reversing economic problems and potential damage is to handle it at the grass roots level. It is the local community that needs to be involved and motivated to help solve the problem. Anything else is just another science project gone wrong.

Most science fair projects tend to follow the steps of the scientific method, but is the scientific method restricted to the field of science? Not really. The elements of the scientific method can be used by people other than researchers and scientists. People with jobs such as marketing, selling, cooking and even defending the law can use the scientific method principles.

Trial and error is one of the elements of the scientific method and this is common to a number of professionals. A cook wants to make the perfect flambe and he will use a number of different alcoholic combinations before he hits the best one. And this means he has to experiment with rum, brandy, wine and a number of trials before he gets that flambe perfected.

If that’s too simplistic imagine a corporate marketing executive who wants to increase the sales of his company. What does he do?He evaluates where the company is making a profit and where it goes into a loss. He makes a plan to improve the revenue generation and then he tweaks the plan to keep it useful. This busy executive in the pinstriped suit is also using the scientific method.

It is not so very different in many other non scientific fields. In fact people use the scientific method in their work and personal lives without even realizing that they are doing so. That’s why almost everything can become a science project of some interest.

In a science project you need to be able to do the same experiment over and over again. Only changing one of the many variables at a time so that you can get the most accurate answer to the problem question. So it is essential to have a few set steps to follow each time you do the experiment.

One of the things to consider is the problem that you want to solve. The better you define your questions the easier it is to answer them. So take your time coming up with the hypothesis that you want to use for the experiments.

Next you need to consider all the elements that form a part of the experiment. These will include the obvious variables such as the stuff that you physically use to perform the experiment and the not so obvious variables such as temperature, pressure and humidity.

Make your experiment as controlled as possible. Any number of variables can affect the experiment that you are trying to perform, so it is quite a job trying to keep the conditions almost exactly the same no matter how many times you repeat the experiment. When you have all the conditions figured out you can perform your science experiments in ease and know that the result will be a great science project.

There are a number of foods that people can be allergic to. One such product is the common egg. In this science project we are going to try and find substitutes for eggs in recipes. To know what can be used in place of the egg we need to know the basic job that the egg performs in the recipe.

Eggs primarily perform three functions in a recipe. The first is binding. Egg is used to hold the different ingredients of the dish together. As in a batter that can be used to fry fritters. The second is leavening agent. This allows the food to rise when it is beaked. It accounts for the softness of cakes and souffles. The third is as a thickening agent. Like how it is added to a dish such as a sauce to thicken it.

Now depending on the recipe you can use a substitute which will not alter the taste too much but still do without the egg. Substitutes for egg include banana and gelatin for binding. If its leavening agents you want you can use baking power, vinegar or butter milk with baking soda. On the other hand a thickener could be corn starch. Also used as thickeners banana, tofu, and tapioca flour. For the science project pick one recipe and use one egg substitute at a time till you find the ideal one.

One of the toughest decisions to make regarding a science fair project is the actual selection of topic. What is it that the science project needs to be about? Some times you think you want to work on a particular project only to realize a few days down the line that it is boring you to bits.

So how do you generate ideas for interesting science fair projects? Get a clue from things you actually like to do. The project is going to be more fun if it involves activities that you already enjoy doing. So get down to making a list of all the activities that you enjoy doing in sports, games, hobbies and anything at all that comes to your mind.

You need to make sure that it is something that you enjoy reading up about as well as doing. This ensures that the actual research part of the science project is easy for you to handle. After all there is nothing quite as boring as having to read books, websites and articles about something that does not interest you.

You can add things to the list that you wonder about. Questions like how does this xyz thing work are very handy while defining the kind of science fair project that you will make.

One of the best ways to spend your summer holidays is playing with toys. And wouldn’t it be even more cool if you could make your own toy town? Imagine a model made from things lying around the house. You could decide to make a model train station and include everything from railway lines to station stops. Or you could make a model of the supermarket complete with shelves and miniature goods on them.

What makes models even more interesting is if some parts of it work or move. For instance in the model of the railway example given above it would be more fun if the trains in the model actually moved on the railway track on their own. You can make a model out of anything you like. And the best part is that you do not need to go and buy things from outside to make a model.

You can ask your parents to give you a bagful of stuff that is lying around the house and which they no longer need. All you need to do is to use this as the basic raw material for making your model. Add some bright colors with either fabrics or paints and you will have an interesting science project on your hands.

No party is complete without its fair share of balloon decorations. And to blow up so many balloons with the air in your lungs is quite a task. Thankfully balloon pumps make that job much easier on any one planning a party these days. Still here’s an interesting science project which will help you blow up balloons without using lung power.

What we need for this experiment are a couple of balloons, some dried yeast, little warm water, a heaped spoon of sugar, a clear plastic bottle and a large bowl in which the bottle can stand. Now here’s what we are going to do. Pour the dried yeast into the bottle. Fill the bottle one fourth with warm water. Add the spoonful of sugar and swirl the bottle’s contents.

Now place the balloon over the mouth of the bottle so that there are no leaks. Now pour some warm water into the large bowl. Place the bottle in the bowl of warm water and leave it on a warm windowsill. Come back in a while to see the progress. You will find that the balloon has magically filled up in your absence. The carbon dioxide from the yeast makes this happen. Now think up of a science project that will help speed up the process.

This is a small science experiment to prove if a lemon will sink or swim if placed in a glass of water. After all the fruit with its acidic juice is one of the most popular ingredients in the kitchen. It is also rather popular in making up science experiments such as writing with invisible ink.

So let’s try and learn a bit more about our yellow colored friend here. Here is what you will need for the experiment. A couple of lemons, a large glass, some water to fill up the glass, and a knife to cut the lemon. It is an easy experiment to set up. First you put the water into the glass. Do remember that you will be adding the lemon to the glass and so don’t fill it all the way up to avoid spills.

Now add the whole lemon fruit to the water glass. What do you observe? It floats. Now that we know that the whole lemon can float we are going to quarter the lemon. Do the individual quarters float? No they sink. Maybe that’s the wrong shape to cut the lemon into. Let’s try again.

This time its going to be lemon rings. Now check if these float? No they don’t. The lemon wedges and rings do not float in the water because the pulp in the lemon starts absorbing water from the glass. This makes the cut pieces heavy and they sink. While the lemon is whole you have a watertight rind making it impossible for the water to soak into the lemon. Now wasn’t that an interesting science experiment?

Have you ever wanted to get rid of a stain on your favorite t-shirt or your mom’s best table cloth? Believe it or not there’s a science project waiting to happen. Essentially the whole thing is just plain chemistry. The material that caused the stain is likely to be removed by another chemical. Lets take a look at some stains and how they can be removed.

The staining chemical needs to be dissolved in another solvent so as not to chemically bond with the fabric it has stained and become permanent. Now the most common solvent is water and if you can wash the material as soon as you drop the offending chemical on it in most cases the stain can be completely avoided. However not all stains wash off that easily.

Some will need the sterner stuff of detergents. These chemicals act as solvents to most of the known food stain possibilities. That’s why they are called powerful cleansers. However some times you may need an even more powerful solvent. There are all kinds of solvents which can be acid or alkali based. Just make sure they don’t damage the material they are trying to get the stain off.

For instance what do you do with the kind of stains that a car mechanic is likely to get on his clothes? In this case a specific grease solvent is needed. Something like a pre laundry soak would do the trick. You can make a very useful science project by tabling just what kind of solvents are needed for specific stains to be removed.