How can teenagers create such science projects?

[Anonymous]

Idiots on this thread. The vast majority of the kids involved in any of these programs are not winning anything at all other than an education. You all need to find something better to do.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote: I saw a thread on Reddit that this was discussed items you can purchase - john locke essay, math competitions, olympiads, buy internship certificates, buy ISEF project, even USAMO is for sale.

Someone there said the majority of ISEF finalists that come from their school either have parents with a PHD or they basically piggyback off a mentor or other PHD the families know.

I just find this off putting that the best schools in the country turn the blind eye to all this.

How can USAMO be for sale? Any activity where a student has to compete inside a room or on a field/court/pool with all eyes on them is legit. Hats off to the winners. Parents can coach or hire experts to coach the hell out of them, but they still have to perform. Essays? Research? Non-profits? Nobody knows who did what and how. Off putting indeed.

On Reddit they said some Chinese company sells USAMO, but it’s expensive.

It is not a company, just one person from a testing site. He posted the top half of the page the two days before the test as a lure with just a portion of the first question. It was on sale in WeChat.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Idiots on this thread. The vast majority of the kids involved in any of these programs are not winning anything at all other than an education. You all need to find something better to do.

Why are you such an idiot?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Idiots on this thread. The vast majority of the kids involved in any of these programs are not winning anything at all other than an education. You all need to find something better to do.

Why are you such an idiot?

Who cares? Plenty of the students doing math competitions and science research are eating it in spite of all the crying and whining on here.

[Anonymous]

The intern with somebody who does the actual research and they get their name on the paper.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The intern with somebody who does the actual research and they get their name on the paper.

Nope.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My uncle is an engineering professor at Cal Tech and he has an enormous and very impressive lab. He’s allowed all of his children and nephews and nieces (and a couple grandchildren) to run experiments on his equipment. Obviously, his guidance also makes for award winning projects. Plus, even students who are admitted to Cal Tech don’t have access to a lab like that until they’re upperclassmen or graduate students.

And yes, he allows the kids to be named in certain scientific articles that he publishes. I’m certainly not going to turn away my kids when they’re in high school and they need projects for their college applications. I imagine other families are similar. It’s no different than children of athletes getting one on one coaching from mom or dad.

Cal Tech Professor was the first person in his family to go to college, but since then, every single person after him has gone to college. I’m humble enough to admit that the rest of us are not at his level of intellect, but still pretty smart. He did it without any help and there are plenty of other first generation college students succeeding.

Caltech undergrads usually start research very early in undergrad. It's the most research-focused undergrad experience out there

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:NP. The science fair kids always have mentors. Usually they are paid and do most of the work while explaining to the kids what’s going on. I learned this when someone my DD looked up to placed in a science fair.

Now I know another kid who placed in last year’s state science fair who did not have a mentor. Or so he says. Dad is in tech. Son is really not that intellectual and cannot tell how why he started the project or what he did. I suspect dad (works at Microsoft) did it.

People that work at Microsoft are allowed to have kids and they're allowed to teach their kids about data and data collection and how to clean up data and how to manipulate data and how to analyze data. Presumably someone taught the person working at Microsoft those skills and they are allowed to teach them to someone else.

Pretty sure Venus Williams is allowed to teach her kid how to play tennis and Taylor Swift is allowed to teach her kid how to compose a song and Stephen King is allowed to teach his kid how to write a story.

But Venus Williams would not be allowed to go play a game for her kid so kid can win a medal, right? There’s no equivalence here!

That and Venus Williams started training at the age of 4 and played in her first official pro tournament was at 14. It took her 10 years to train to that level and I’m sure it was 40 hours a week or more.

Are you telling me your kid started data science, IoT, web technologies and environmental science in elementary school and got to professional level at the age of 14?

Spare me from this BS. I know how long it takes.

The level of time required to become world class in one of the most popular activities in the world is very different from the level of time required to be able to do research that wins a competition for high school students

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:NP. The science fair kids always have mentors. Usually they are paid and do most of the work while explaining to the kids what’s going on. I learned this when someone my DD looked up to placed in a science fair.

Now I know another kid who placed in last year’s state science fair who did not have a mentor. Or so he says. Dad is in tech. Son is really not that intellectual and cannot tell how why he started the project or what he did. I suspect dad (works at Microsoft) did it.

People that work at Microsoft are allowed to have kids and they're allowed to teach their kids about data and data collection and how to clean up data and how to manipulate data and how to analyze data. Presumably someone taught the person working at Microsoft those skills and they are allowed to teach them to someone else.

Pretty sure Venus Williams is allowed to teach her kid how to play tennis and Taylor Swift is allowed to teach her kid how to compose a song and Stephen King is allowed to teach his kid how to write a story.

But Venus Williams would not be allowed to go play a game for her kid so kid can win a medal, right? There’s no equivalence here!

That and Venus Williams started training at the age of 4 and played in her first official pro tournament was at 14. It took her 10 years to train to that level and I’m sure it was 40 hours a week or more.

Are you telling me your kid started data science, IoT, web technologies and environmental science in elementary school and got to professional level at the age of 14?

Spare me from this BS. I know how long it takes.

The level of time required to become world class in one of the most popular activities in the world is very different from the level of time required to be able to do research that wins a competition for high school students

No. Research is serious business that takes years to learn the trade. From acquiring basic competence in the subject, to being able to even read conference/journal papers to understand what has been done, that typically requires at least a few graduate-level classes. The individual then needs to come up with ideas that can potentially advance the state of the art, realize those ideas by designing/performing experiments or developing a theory, and turn the results obtained into publishable papers that can fend off criticisms from reviewers. That's a long journey filled with blood, sweat, and frustration dotted with occasional Eureka moments. Can a high schooler do it in an independent fashion? Sure, there are Bill Gates, Terrence Tao, and the likes among us, but they are 1 in 100,000. Not 1000 in 100,000 who apply to top schools each year and claim to have done published research.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:NP. The science fair kids always have mentors. Usually they are paid and do most of the work while explaining to the kids what’s going on. I learned this when someone my DD looked up to placed in a science fair.

Now I know another kid who placed in last year’s state science fair who did not have a mentor. Or so he says. Dad is in tech. Son is really not that intellectual and cannot tell how why he started the project or what he did. I suspect dad (works at Microsoft) did it.

People that work at Microsoft are allowed to have kids and they're allowed to teach their kids about data and data collection and how to clean up data and how to manipulate data and how to analyze data. Presumably someone taught the person working at Microsoft those skills and they are allowed to teach them to someone else.

Pretty sure Venus Williams is allowed to teach her kid how to play tennis and Taylor Swift is allowed to teach her kid how to compose a song and Stephen King is allowed to teach his kid how to write a story.

But Venus Williams would not be allowed to go play a game for her kid so kid can win a medal, right? There’s no equivalence here!

That and Venus Williams started training at the age of 4 and played in her first official pro tournament was at 14. It took her 10 years to train to that level and I’m sure it was 40 hours a week or more.

Are you telling me your kid started data science, IoT, web technologies and environmental science in elementary school and got to professional level at the age of 14?

Spare me from this BS. I know how long it takes.

The level of time required to become world class in one of the most popular activities in the world is very different from the level of time required to be able to do research that wins a competition for high school students

No. Research is serious business that takes years to learn the trade. From acquiring basic competence in the subject, to being able to even read conference/journal papers to understand what has been done, that typically requires at least a few graduate-level classes. The individual then needs to come up with ideas that can potentially advance the state of the art, realize those ideas by designing/performing experiments or developing a theory, and turn the results obtained into publishable papers that can fend off criticisms from reviewers. That's a long journey filled with blood, sweat, and frustration dotted with occasional Eureka moments. Can a high schooler do it in an independent fashion? Sure, there are Bill Gates, Terrence Tao, and the likes among us, but they are 1 in 100,000. Not 1000 in 100,000 who apply to top schools each year and claim to have done published research.

You need to relax. There are over 3 and 1/2 million kids that come out of high school every year and a very small percentage of them are interested in science research at all. Of the very small number some do poor quality projects, some do average quality and some do high quality projects. You've got yourself in a snit over a tiny amount of high school kids.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The intern with somebody who does the actual research and they get their name on the paper.

Nope.

Yes.

You can google the research and see the real publication.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The intern with somebody who does the actual research and they get their name on the paper.

Nope.

Yes.

You can google the research and see the real publication.

Published scientific papers can have can have a dozen names strewn across the byline. It doesn't mean they all lead researchers and no one assumes that they are all lead researchers. The lead authors can decide to acknowledge people that made a scientific contribution to the overall project including an intern.
Being included does not imply that everyone had the same degree of input to the result and a knowledgeable person would not assume so.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:NP. The science fair kids always have mentors. Usually they are paid and do most of the work while explaining to the kids what’s going on. I learned this when someone my DD looked up to placed in a science fair.

Now I know another kid who placed in last year’s state science fair who did not have a mentor. Or so he says. Dad is in tech. Son is really not that intellectual and cannot tell how why he started the project or what he did. I suspect dad (works at Microsoft) did it.

People that work at Microsoft are allowed to have kids and they're allowed to teach their kids about data and data collection and how to clean up data and how to manipulate data and how to analyze data. Presumably someone taught the person working at Microsoft those skills and they are allowed to teach them to someone else.

Pretty sure Venus Williams is allowed to teach her kid how to play tennis and Taylor Swift is allowed to teach her kid how to compose a song and Stephen King is allowed to teach his kid how to write a story.

But Venus Williams would not be allowed to go play a game for her kid so kid can win a medal, right? There’s no equivalence here!

That and Venus Williams started training at the age of 4 and played in her first official pro tournament was at 14. It took her 10 years to train to that level and I’m sure it was 40 hours a week or more.

Are you telling me your kid started data science, IoT, web technologies and environmental science in elementary school and got to professional level at the age of 14?

Spare me from this BS. I know how long it takes.

The level of time required to become world class in one of the most popular activities in the world is very different from the level of time required to be able to do research that wins a competition for high school students

No. Research is serious business that takes years to learn the trade. From acquiring basic competence in the subject, to being able to even read conference/journal papers to understand what has been done, that typically requires at least a few graduate-level classes. The individual then needs to come up with ideas that can potentially advance the state of the art, realize those ideas by designing/performing experiments or developing a theory, and turn the results obtained into publishable papers that can fend off criticisms from reviewers. That's a long journey filled with blood, sweat, and frustration dotted with occasional Eureka moments. Can a high schooler do it in an independent fashion? Sure, there are Bill Gates, Terrence Tao, and the likes among us, but they are 1 in 100,000. Not 1000 in 100,000 who apply to top schools each year and claim to have done published research.

You need to relax. There are over 3 and 1/2 million kids that come out of high school every year and a very small percentage of them are interested in science research at all. Of the very small number some do poor quality projects, some do average quality and some do high quality projects. You've got yourself in a snit over a tiny amount of high school kids.

That was a new poster, not the one who commented about MS and replied to you about Williams. You are now trying to generalize — all I was saying, that you commented on, was that this kid’s dad seems to have done the work as the dad is in the same field and I’ve been working with the kid on other stuff. Do you know what the kid wants to do with his life after all this research? Become a “coder”. That is it! He dies not want to continue his research this year and could not tell me if he could enhance what he had already done. I think there may be kids who can do it on their own (I do not know), but this kid is NOT one of them. Parents are obsessed with HYPSM so this might have been their contribution.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:NP. The science fair kids always have mentors. Usually they are paid and do most of the work while explaining to the kids what’s going on. I learned this when someone my DD looked up to placed in a science fair.

Now I know another kid who placed in last year’s state science fair who did not have a mentor. Or so he says. Dad is in tech. Son is really not that intellectual and cannot tell how why he started the project or what he did. I suspect dad (works at Microsoft) did it.

People that work at Microsoft are allowed to have kids and they're allowed to teach their kids about data and data collection and how to clean up data and how to manipulate data and how to analyze data. Presumably someone taught the person working at Microsoft those skills and they are allowed to teach them to someone else.

Pretty sure Venus Williams is allowed to teach her kid how to play tennis and Taylor Swift is allowed to teach her kid how to compose a song and Stephen King is allowed to teach his kid how to write a story.

But Venus Williams would not be allowed to go play a game for her kid so kid can win a medal, right? There’s no equivalence here!

That and Venus Williams started training at the age of 4 and played in her first official pro tournament was at 14. It took her 10 years to train to that level and I’m sure it was 40 hours a week or more.

Are you telling me your kid started data science, IoT, web technologies and environmental science in elementary school and got to professional level at the age of 14?

Spare me from this BS. I know how long it takes.

The level of time required to become world class in one of the most popular activities in the world is very different from the level of time required to be able to do research that wins a competition for high school students

No. Research is serious business that takes years to learn the trade. From acquiring basic competence in the subject, to being able to even read conference/journal papers to understand what has been done, that typically requires at least a few graduate-level classes. The individual then needs to come up with ideas that can potentially advance the state of the art, realize those ideas by designing/performing experiments or developing a theory, and turn the results obtained into publishable papers that can fend off criticisms from reviewers. That's a long journey filled with blood, sweat, and frustration dotted with occasional Eureka moments. Can a high schooler do it in an independent fashion? Sure, there are Bill Gates, Terrence Tao, and the likes among us, but they are 1 in 100,000. Not 1000 in 100,000 who apply to top schools each year and claim to have done published research.

You need to relax. There are over 3 and 1/2 million kids that come out of high school every year and a very small percentage of them are interested in science research at all. Of the very small number some do poor quality projects, some do average quality and some do high quality projects. You've got yourself in a snit over a tiny amount of high school kids.

It's not the number of kids involved, nor the quality of the research produced, that's the issue. It's ethic and honesty. Are you okay with kids unethically claiming they have published research papers when in reality all they did was the equivalent to washing test tubes? They barely knew the subject, did not contribute a single ounce of thought, did not write a single sentence for the papers, and yet are dishonestly listed as co-authors because their parents pay for the opportunities or hook them up with friends/colleagues willing to look the other way?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:NP. The science fair kids always have mentors. Usually they are paid and do most of the work while explaining to the kids what’s going on. I learned this when someone my DD looked up to placed in a science fair.

Now I know another kid who placed in last year’s state science fair who did not have a mentor. Or so he says. Dad is in tech. Son is really not that intellectual and cannot tell how why he started the project or what he did. I suspect dad (works at Microsoft) did it.

People that work at Microsoft are allowed to have kids and they're allowed to teach their kids about data and data collection and how to clean up data and how to manipulate data and how to analyze data. Presumably someone taught the person working at Microsoft those skills and they are allowed to teach them to someone else.

Pretty sure Venus Williams is allowed to teach her kid how to play tennis and Taylor Swift is allowed to teach her kid how to compose a song and Stephen King is allowed to teach his kid how to write a story.

But Venus Williams would not be allowed to go play a game for her kid so kid can win a medal, right? There’s no equivalence here!

That and Venus Williams started training at the age of 4 and played in her first official pro tournament was at 14. It took her 10 years to train to that level and I’m sure it was 40 hours a week or more.

Are you telling me your kid started data science, IoT, web technologies and environmental science in elementary school and got to professional level at the age of 14?

Spare me from this BS. I know how long it takes.

The level of time required to become world class in one of the most popular activities in the world is very different from the level of time required to be able to do research that wins a competition for high school students

No. Research is serious business that takes years to learn the trade. From acquiring basic competence in the subject, to being able to even read conference/journal papers to understand what has been done, that typically requires at least a few graduate-level classes. The individual then needs to come up with ideas that can potentially advance the state of the art, realize those ideas by designing/performing experiments or developing a theory, and turn the results obtained into publishable papers that can fend off criticisms from reviewers. That's a long journey filled with blood, sweat, and frustration dotted with occasional Eureka moments. Can a high schooler do it in an independent fashion? Sure, there are Bill Gates, Terrence Tao, and the likes among us, but they are 1 in 100,000. Not 1000 in 100,000 who apply to top schools each year and claim to have done published research.

You need to relax. There are over 3 and 1/2 million kids that come out of high school every year and a very small percentage of them are interested in science research at all. Of the very small number some do poor quality projects, some do average quality and some do high quality projects. You've got yourself in a snit over a tiny amount of high school kids.

It's not the number of kids involved, nor the quality of the research produced, that's the issue. It's ethic and honesty. Are you okay with kids unethically claiming they have published research papers when in reality all they did was the equivalent to washing test tubes? They barely knew the subject, did not contribute a single ounce of thought, did not write a single sentence for the papers, and yet are dishonestly listed as co-authors because their parents pay for the opportunities or hook them up with friends/colleagues willing to look the other way?

Can you please Google order of authorship on scientific papers. There are hundreds of different scientific publications and they all have different guidelines and rules, but in general someone that makes a small contribution comes at the end of the list. No one with any knowledge would be confusing that person with any kind of lead researcher.