Thursday, May 16, 2013
Hi all,
Today was public viewing day at ISEF, which for finalists meant another long day of standing in front of our projects but without the added stress of competition. The CT finalists assembled for breakfast in the hotel at around 9:15am, most of them tired after having stayed up for the midnight showing of Star Trek: Into Darkness (which received good reviews all around). By 10 am, all of us were back in the exhibition hall, ready to explain our research to the middle school students that were attending public viewing. Many teachers, off-duty judges, and science-minded people also visited projects, and some of the finalists even got to walk around and look at the work of their peers.
After the public viewing ended at 2:00pm, the CT finalists returned to the hotel for an afternoon of taking naps and swimming at the pool. After dinner at Majerle’s , we headed down to the Special Awards ceremony, where CT had two winners! Kaitavjeet won the Third Award of $1000 from the American Society for Microbiology, and Emily also won the Third Award of $1000 from NASA. Afterwards, some of the finalists went to Cold Stone for celebratory ice cream, while others began catching up on lost sleep.
Tomorrow we will find out who wins the category awards!