The rest of the Week

Well, I didn't have as much time to update from ISEF this year, so I'll just post the rest here:

Garrett got to play at some cool things at the student zone. There was a laser maze and 3-D motion computer games.

Tuesday night they closed down LA Live for us. We got to eat for free and play free games at the ESPN Zone and hang out at the Nokia Club (Garrett) and the Conga Room (adults).

Wednesday was judging day. It was a pretty good judging session for Garrett, and his project turned out awesome.

I (Mr. Harshman) presented with another teacher about my experience at the STARs Research program last summer. The presentation went great.

With judging over, we had Universal Studios Hollywood all to ourselves! We rode the Mummy 3 times in a row in the front seat! It was awesome to have a theme park open only to you!

The public viewing day was held Thursday which was really cool. The awards ceremonies were Thursday night and Friday morning. No awards this year, but Garrett did an awesome job and has learned a lot. Plus he has another year to try and get here!

After awards, on Friday we finally got to go surfing at Huntington Beach. Garrett did great and had a great time there.

All in all, it was an awesome experience. We would like to thank the Education Foundation and Sue Puchalla for making all of this happen. It was a great experience and we will remeber it for the rest of our lives.

MaST is Back at ISEF!

Well, we're back in California...a little more south than last year in L.A.! Garrett Moler is the student from MaST at ISEF this year, and his project on harvesting wave energy is pretty awesome. His set-up had a lot of parts, so we spent Sunday evening and Monday morning putting it up. We think it turned out great! Here are some pics...

We didn't have time to go surfing before opening ceremonies...we're going to try and fit that in later in the week. So, after set-up (no violations!), we went to a place Garrett described as "Heaven on Earth," the Guitar Center L.A. on the Sunset Strip. He got to try some really awesome guitars, and there was even a guitar there that was more than $80,000! I made sure we didn't get too near...

His hands also exactly fit the imprint of Eddie Van Halen...something he called a "sign."

After that, we came back to the convention center, had a really great dinner put on by ISEF, and attended the opening ceremonies. There was a percussion group that played instruments like in STOMP, Nobel Laureates, and the Keynote speaker was the CEO of Dreamworks. It's a very big event, and Garrett was able to meet other student researchers...from Florida to Kazakstan! All in all it's been a pretty awesome trip so far...but the best is yet to come.