Yesterday saw my annual stint of judging at the California State Science Fair. Somehow it managed to sneak up on me this year, and so I did not get to do what I planned to do, which is encourage one or two scientist/engineer friends of mine in the area to sign up to get involved, since it is such fun and quite rewarding (ahem: Michelle P., Amy M., mark your calendars for next year! I’m going to come a-calling…) See earlier posts (e.g., here, here) for science fair descriptions, and the fair’s own site with lots of photos each year is here.

(Ok, there’s the whole getting up in time to arrive there by 7:00am or so. That bit is less than good, perhaps.) I arrived a bit later than 7:00, due to some breakfast procrastination that I somehow sometimes manage to do even when I wake up with plenty of time (a whole hour this time) to get ready. My plan to simply set out by 6:10am and pleasantly walk/bike and bus down (my usual mode) was thwarted by this and so I had to take a somewhat quicker mode of transport, launching out of the batcave in a hurry at 6:50am! By 7:15am the parents and students in their SUVs and minivans were arriving at the California Science Center in droves, and so this meant that parking was a bit more of a challenge that it would have been 15 minutes earlier. But as you can perhaps see on the right (click for larger view), it all worked out in the end… ( 🙂 )

Here’s a shot of the annual morning briefing of the volunteer judges (all well fed, Click to continue reading this post →