High School Science Fair Projects Are Interesting, but Sometimes They Really Stand Out!

High School Science Fairs were always a lot of fun during my High School days! Whether I was just visiting or participating, they always provided interesting, enlightening and memorable experiences.

Some students obviously spent lots of time and effort constructing their exhibits and project props, posters, charts & graphs, various "devices", and so on. I remember seeing the familiar "van de Graaff generators" at more than one science fair!

That's the static-electricity generating device that looks like an aluminum ball atop an aluminum pedestal...and when turned on, sets up a static-electricity field around the ball...which would extend far enough to make passers-by feel its effects; their body hairs would "stand on end", as the saying goes.

Although that particular science fair project may have been slightly 'over-used' through the years, it always provided an interesting distraction, if nothing more!

Sometimes, as we'd walk around the gymnasium filled with tables, booths and setups with a myriad of uniquely intriguing and innovative exhibits, we'd come across one or two which just seemed to stand out.

I recall one year when just such an exhibit was set up on the "stage" section of the gym (back in those days, the schools had 'multi-use' spaces, not separate auditoriums, gyms, etc. as is more common today). There were about six or seven other exhibits also up on the stage section, set up in sort of a horse-shoe shape across the stage.

As we walked along from the right side of the stage to the left, nearing the end of the stage exibits, we noticed one booth with posters that read "Invisible Paint Exhibit".

On the table were more neatly printed, free-standing smaller signs which briefly outlined how the 'invisible paint' had been invented, and how 'such an innovative and ground-breaking invention could benefit all of mankind in ways unimaginable', and how upon the table were actual items which had been coated with this newly invented miracle paint, thus they could not be seen.