Speaker 1: Hey everyone my name is Rishabh Jain and I won the Regeneron Young Scientist Award in 2022 and also the first place in Biomedical Engineering and so I've been talking really fast because I'm trying to get through a bunch of information in as short a time as possible to keep you guys from waiting and so let's get straight into the video. So first I'm going to be talking about my journey real quick through science fairs. In middle school I started doing science fair. I won America's Top Young Scientist in the 3M Young Scientist Challenge. That was my kind of first main exposure to science fair. Then I did Broadcom Masters in eighth grade. I won second place at at the national level and was a top 30 finalist, of course, and then I qualified for ISEF in my freshman year. It was unfortunately canceled due to COVID. This was the first year I think by Regeneron, it was virtual and we logged in as me, we characters in this event farm world. Then in 2021, I did the virtual Regeneron ISEF fair. I got third place in biomedical engineering, didn't really like the virtual format, found it a little bit harder to connect with my judges. And so then in person in the next year, after learning a bunch more, I got first place in Biomedical Engineering and the $50,000 Regeneron Young Scientist Award, so I have some experience in science where I've been doing it for a ton of years, and so I thought I'd tell you a little bit more. Now, I made an entire video documenting my experiences at ISAF, and I highly recommend you check out this video after watching this video, which will be focused on tips. That video is about my experiences at ISAF itself, and so if you're aspiring to become an ISAF finalist or already are, check out that video after this one. So now let's get into the tips. So these tips, a word of caution, on the screen there's going to be a bunch of bullet points and words. Ignore those words, listen to what I'm saying because those words are just for my own to spark my own thoughts. And so tip number one was no memorization. And what I mean by that is no memorization. And why? Well, what I've noticed is in some of my best performances at science fairs and science symposiums and presentations, they've been non-memorized. Like this, while I'm speaking right now, I'm not memorized as you can clearly tell because I'm messing up a bunch. But at tons of science fairs, like the National Junior Science and Humanities Symposium, you have to memorize a script or an oral presentation that you're giving, but I like to keep things a little bit more fluid. I have an idea of what I'm saying, but I don't memorize what I say exactly, and the reason why this helps is because I can adapt to the situation, adapt to specific lines of questioning that judges are asking me, and specific lines that I think that a certain judge might be tailored to. Let's say they have a PhD in computer science, now I can adapt my speech to that. And so that's why I don't like to memorize. And I've noticed that I perform the best when I'm not memorized, when I'm not reading off a script. Because I can be genuine and I can be a real person, not a static robot. So don't memorize. All right. Tip number two is don't overdo visuals, but have a visual. Now take this with kind of a grain of salt because visuals are not required at ISEF or any other most science fairs, I guess. But I do find that they're a little bit helpful, especially with computational projects. Now my project was an artificial intelligence-based code on optimization tool that probably sounded like a bunch of gibberish, but basically what it did is you can take a synthetic DNA sequence and optimize it so that more protein can be harvested from it. Yeah, that probably didn't make much sense either if you're not in BME, but anyway, I'm going to continue. I had a visual for it, which was a software demonstration of my tool on my Chromebook laptop that I brought to ISEF. And that minor visual, I think, did help a little bit because although judges weren't really asking about it when they came to my booth. I think that when they were earlier walking through all the booths and making observations, they can kind of see that thing and see like, okay, this is kind of the end result of what you created. And so if you have some sort of visual, like if you're doing a hardcore bio project and you're like, I have no visual, bring like a molecule, like those plastic molecules. I've noticed those work. If you've literally built something, try to bring it because that will help compared to a photo. And then if you're a computational project like mine, maybe build a software, maybe build an app and showcase that, build a prototype or a mockup that you can show because that kind of goes to show like what will this really look like because in your mind it's really clear but to a judge who maybe hasn't even read about your project yet, it's not that clear. And so visuals and outcomes of what you have created kind of helps there. Tip number three is to be genuine and honest. This is a little bit of an elaboration of what I previously spoke about in tip number one but basically by this, I mean, talk about your mistakes and failures as well. One thing I've noticed in science fairs is people tend to avoid talking about negatives of their research. But guys, we're literally high school students. I'm assuming most of you are middle schoolers or high schoolers. And so we're literally high school students. We're not expected to be a perfect Nobel laureate yet. We're scientists learning the scientific process and research process. Of course, I've been doing research for like five or six years now, so I have a solid idea, and that's probably also contributing to my success in science fairs. if I might say, but I feel like being genuine and talking about my experiences and whether those be mistakes or positive things is still good because it shows that you're a human and it shows that you're being genuine and you're walking people through the steps that you went through to find a final solution. So talk about the problems you encountered. Talk about the mistakes you had and failures you made along the way because that's only going to show that you are a genuine scientist and that someone else didn't do your project for you, or you're not copying a paper, you made mistakes because you came up with the methodology on your own. And so it wasn't perfect the first time it went through. All right, tip number four is to keep going. Now, if you have, one mistake I made in the 2021 Virtual ISEF Fair was the first judge I had grilled me a lot, and I got a little bit worried, and I think that kind of messed with the performance of my other two judges. And I know like I still ended up performing pretty well, winning a grand prize award, but I feel like I could have done better if I didn't have that burden after the first judge that I was a little bit scared. And so my advice here would be to keep going. At ISEF, these are really qualified research judges who are going to know a lot about your field, but at the end of the day, you're the expert, and so be confident, and if you do make a mistake at the end of the day, it's not the end of the world. You can still win a grand prize. You can still do extremely well. And so I'd recommend keep going. Don't worry about it too much. Just keep, just forget about what happened in the past. Move forward and focus on now. Putting your best foot forward no matter what happens. All right, tip number five is to listen to hype music. Okay, this is a little bit of a fun one, but basically before my ISEF judging in person in Atlanta, Georgia, 2022 ISEF, I listened to some hype songs. And so, I don't know, but it just, It got me, it got my mood right. And so if you can, for whatever reason, listen to some music before your judging session rather than rehearsing. Like I always see kids, they have their backs turned or whatever, and they're just talking to their board. You can do that, I guess, but I feel like it's better just to focus your mind, like maybe meditate a little bit, listen to some music to calm yourself. Don't overstress, I guess, that's what I'm trying to say. And then also pro tip is to take a cold shower. This is kind of a ritual I have before all of my science fairs and competitions is to take a cold shower. And it's most of the time works. So tip number six is to place yourself in the right category. Okay, I probably should have put this as tip number one because this is so important. And so basically, ISEF gives you a list of categories and they give you a general description and they say, put your project into this category. But if you're like me, you might've been a little bit confused. I had my project, I thought it could go in comp bio, I thought it could go in BME, I thought it could go in the biomedical science and health category, I thought it could go in the CS category, that's four, okay? Four categories for one project, so how do you possibly figure out which one to put your project in? Well, don't base it off of how many kids are in each category or nonsense like that. At the end of the day, the ISAF judging process is solid, and so there's no point of trying to play games with that. Instead, I'd recommend just place yourself in the right category that not only fits your project, but you think judges will be able to grasp your project and understand the full extent of the work you did. That's how I decided my category, and I found that to be the most helpful thing. I did a bunch of research to try to figure out what category I should put my project into, and ultimately this was the obvious thing. Like, okay, you have PhD judges in CS, I have PhD judges in medicine, I have PhD judges in comp bio, and I have PhD judges in biomedical engineering. Which one do I want? And so if I chose the CS judges, yeah, they'd get the AI portions of my project, the machine learning portions, better than any of the other judges. But would they really be able to understand the biology? Probably not. Same thing for medicine. Yeah, they can understand maybe some of the parts about vaccines, but it's not super applicable. It's a heavy bio project. So that left me with comp bio and BME. That's a more difficult decision. But when I was looking into BME, I noticed they had a synthetic bio subfield. And I knew that there's gonna be judges with experience in both engineering and biology in this category. And so there's a high chance that they're going to have experience with the specific thing that I'm talking about, because I'm working on a technique that's well known in the BME field. If I went in comp bio, yes, they're gonna probably be able to understand my application of AI to the bio problem better than the BME judges, but will they understand the context in which, you know, I'm working on a BME process in synthetic bio? And so that's how I ultimately decided on BME. I hope that's a little bit helpful. But yeah, try to place yourself in the category based off of what your project fits best in, and then also, you know, what experience, or what's the judge's expertise? Because at the end of the day, they're going to try to understand your project. And so you want them to have the easiest time doing that. So select the best category. All right, tip number seven is to read, read, read. And so basically, I guess this is more like prep for ISAF is at a certain point, there's a certain point where you have all your materials submitted for ISAF. And so rather than writing, rather than writing out a script of what to say, I'd recommend reading, reading more about your field, reading more about the topics, because this will not only help you in your future research endeavors, years later you're gonna have a wealth of knowledge you accumulated from doing science fairs and doing ISAF, but you'll also be able to better translate your reading and your scientific knowledge and expertise when you're speaking to the judges rather than preparing a script of what to say. Tip number eight is to show technical depth but also breadth, and then show you accounted for certain things. So let me explain a little bit about why I have this tip. And so, basically, you don't wanna spew out so much technical jargon that it seems like you just read a bunch of stuff off from a paper or like a Wikipedia article and you're just regurgitating that. So you should have some technical depth to show you have some expertise, but also breadth. Understand other things besides just your project. Understand, like if you're diving into an AI network, Of course, you wanna have the depth to know like, okay, what are my different layers? What are the algorithms behind these? What are the formulas? Like, how do these work? Of course, you wanna have that. But then rather than keep like, rather than diving into that even deeper and deeper and figuring out what this random differential equation means, I'd recommend maybe exploring a little bit of breadth as well. Like, okay, taking a step back, what are the other solutions? Like read more about the other solutions in the field You have more context. And so ideally, this should all be done before your project, before you're conducting your research, but I mean, as a science fair participant, I totally understand. You do your research, and then sometimes you forget a little bit of the lit review you did back in the summer or back in the winter because we're busy high school students. And so, you know, read up on that depth and also breadth. And then show you accounted for things like along your way, while you're explaining kind of like a story or laying out what you did in your project to your judges, show that you accounted for certain things based off of your technical expertise. Like, oh, I knew that this, I hypothesized that this might happen because of this factor within my neural network, but I decided to do this because, like, this should theoretically have a better performance. Show why you did things, and talk about why, rather than just telling what you did. All right, tip number nine, we're getting to the end. Tell stories and walk through processes. This is kind of extending what I just said, but again, explain why and how rather than what. That's all I'm gonna leave on that. I think you guys can interpret that for your own projects. And tip number 10 is to have fun. Like seriously, not only will this make your experience way less stressful, it will also improve your scoring by having fun. Enjoy your project, enjoy the excitement that you've built for ISEF and the passion that you have for research. Have fun. I was not worried about the awards I was gonna get. Like, if you ask my fellow Team Oregon participants, I was like, you know, I might get this, but I might get some award. I'd be happy to get that, but like, it's okay. I did this for the research and for the experience, not necessarily to win awards. And so have fun and enjoy that, and you'll be way less stressed. And then hopefully, if your name's called during the award ceremony, you'll be even more happier. Of course, you'd have a little bit less relief if you're anticipating something and you're suddenly finally relieved, but you'll be happier, and you'll be able to look upon that moment months later and be like, you know, that was truly the summation and truly the climax of my research that I'd been working on for so long, rather than building up that anticipation beforehand in the days before, anticipating what award you're gonna get or whatnot. So if you've already qualified for ISEF, I wish you the best of luck at ISEF, and maybe I'll even see you there if I qualify in 2023. And if you're not yet qualified for ISEF and looking for tips, I hope you found this helpful. Consider subscribing to my YouTube channel and now watch the next video which is gonna tell you about Regeneron ISEF experiences in 2022, narrated by yours truly, Rishabh Jain, signing off.