February 5th, 2008 in Communication

I Won Science Fair with A Failed Project: The Skill of Presenting Failures

For my first three science fairs, I received a participation ribbon — no prizes, no other acknowledgment. For my fourth, I walked away with $600, a first place award from AFCEA, a Discovery Science award and the Yale Science & Engineering Association Award.

My science fair project that year wasn’t any different from my past projects: I failed to prove anything, learned nothing about science, and did the project in order to receive a grade in my science class, rather than any interest in the project. The real difference was in my presentation skills. I had learned that I could present a failure just as well as success.

The fact that I could talk about my project, whether to one person or a group, gave me a head start on the competition, no matter how good their projects were. Even successful science fair participants could get flustered by a question or thrown off by shyness. They practiced their material like it was a speech — they just had to repeat it and they were done. Problem is, science fair judges ask questions in order to get a better idea of the project — it’s also their chief technique for ensuring that a student did all of their own work with no help from his or her parents.

Five Questions For Presenters

When I began preparing for my presentation, I made a list of the questions that I really didn’t want to answer about my project. Uncomfortable as that process was, I figured out how to answer those questions. I even felt comfortable talking about each of those points and included most of my answers in my presentation. The questions boiled down to the five below.

What went wrong?
What could I have done, in hindsight, to prevent the problem?
What parts of this project is salvageable?
Can I still meet the goals of this project? How?
What is the future of this project?

These questions have to be the focus of your presentation if you aren’t able to talk about successes. It can be uncomfortable to talk about these points, especially because they tend to lead to discussions of who takes the blame for any problems, but these are the questions that your audience will be interested in.

Preparing for the Actual Presentation

Creating a good presentation, even about a bad topic, isn’t just about planning what you will say. It’s about taking that standard tri-fold science fair board and turning it into something that stands out from the other three hundred boards in the gymnasium — or creating a professional PowerPoint or other presentation materials. It’s about learning background material and preparing to take questions, from people who haven’t ever been exposed to any of the information you’re talking about, as well as people with advanced degrees in your topic. It’s not any different than preparing any other presentation.

When you’re preparing to talk about a project that, for any reason, just didn’t work out, though, your presentation materials need to be just that much better. You have a plan for every question, too. You may not be able to answer every question, but you should be able to point towards resources or describe a way to answer it. Your presentation needs to reach a higher level if you don’t have results to back up your talk. I haven’t focused much on the generalities of presenting here — if you need more information about planning a general presentation, consider starting with this roundup of past posts.

How I Presented My Failure

Science fairs can be all-day propositions. I probably presented my project twenty-five times, and each time someone asked to hear about my project, I started out the same way. I admitted my failure right off the bat. I talked about what had gone wrong and shouldered my responsibility.

I found that the fact that I didn’t try to explain away my failure went a long way to improving the judges’ perception of my project. I was able to clearly point out what I would do differently if I was to start the project over; I knew what I could do to build on my project. Future plans were the key: I got more attention by talking about what steps I could take next than by discussing hypotheses and the scientific method.

It also helped that I didn’t use my failed project as an excuse. I completed my experiment even after it was clear that the project was a dud. I still went all out on preparing my science fair presentation board and talk, and it showed.

Playing to My Project’s Strengths

I know you’re wondering what sort of project could obviously fail, yet win awards. The title of my project was “The Effects of Everyday Radiation of Household Objects on the Regenerative Capabilities of Planaria.” My biggest award was from the AFCEA (Armed Forces Communications and Electronics Association), and I know exactly why. The judges assigned to choose recipients for the AFCEA came to see my project because my abstract mentioned that I was testing the radiation of electronic objects like televisions. They stayed because it only took a pointed question about radiation to get me talking about why such research is necessary and where it could go. I wasn’t listed with the engineering projects: I shouldn’t have been on their radar at all. I was able to answer their questions, though, because of the strength of the preparations I had made for my presentation.

WRITER'S BIOGRAPHY

Thursday Bram

Thursday Bram blogs about a variety of topics, from personal finance to small business. She is the author of an upcoming book on the tools and tricks you need to build a career you can take with you during long-term travel. More information about Thursday and her book, Working Your Way Around the World, is available on her personal site, ThursdayBram.com.

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Dave Navarro - Million Dollar Leverage says on February 5th, 2008 at 10:27 am
Just goes to show you that the ability to communicate trumps almost everything else.
Great use of positive redirection :-)
Martin says on February 5th, 2008 at 10:35 am
This is absolutely right. A fantastic subject to write about.
Something very similar happened to my wife, when she was studying for her Masters Degree.
The experiments were not providing the results that had been hoped for. But this was still useful and the results had no bearing on whether or not the write ups and presentations were going to be good or not.
So by playing any failures fully to her advantage (and by preparing well as you mention), my wife achieved full distinction in all the work she did relating to the experiments.
@Dave Navarro, that’s so true… communication is key.
eric wright says on February 5th, 2008 at 11:43 am
I absolutely agree that presentation skills are more important than the project itself. I went to the State Science Fair 3 times, won multiple special awards, and received way too many certificates. And I didn’t perform one single experiment.
I faked the whole science fair. I knew what was supposed to happen if I had actually done the experiments, so I created fake log books of experiment results.
It was presentation that won it. I knew I could present the topic better than I could experiment. I learned everything about the topic. I also learned from the questions of previous judges, and would use their questions in later presentations. I also “expanded” it over three years.
I think I actually learned more about that area of science than if I had actually done the experiments. Good presentation is what wins. I think that still holds true. There are so many scientific and political stances that are nonsense, and yet people believe them because someone gave a compelling presentation of the material.
The Freelancer's Store says on February 5th, 2008 at 2:27 pm
Excellent article. It’s amazing what communication can do. I think it’s also a matter of perspective, how you look at failure, and if you’re able to articulate that failure is not the end, but rather is the impetus to do better.
Thanks for sharing, this post has made my day!
Stephen Martile says on February 5th, 2008 at 4:19 pm
A great new perspective. Thank-you,
Stephen Martile
Personal Development Made Simple
http://www.stephenmartile.com
Bucket says on February 5th, 2008 at 4:57 pm
It’s sad that bullshit can so easily trump substance.
Phlavor says on February 5th, 2008 at 7:17 pm
As the son of an Ad man, I too, learned this early on. I was going to fail 9th grade Science if I didn’t pull a science fair project out of thin air in 5 days that could achieve an A. I choose one out of my beloved World Book Encyclopedia that didn’t involve time to record results, (Color spectrum and prisms or something)and put every waking moment into the presentation. The science was real thin but the presentation was all razzle dazzle. Got the A went to the Science Fair. Some girl that microwaved and froze roaches won though.
GS says on February 6th, 2008 at 12:56 am
Presentation skills are definitely not emphasized enough in schools – but it lets us with the skills stand out just a bit better….
Thursday says on February 6th, 2008 at 10:36 am
I think that the ability to talk about a project — even if it isn’t successful — is key. I just wish that schools actually taught presentation and communication skills.
Andrew Nelson says on February 7th, 2008 at 10:45 am
Well done, and belated congratulations. But I see both you and your commenters missed the point. All science is built on failed experiments. What advances it is the ability to learn lessons from your own and other’s mistakes. Answering those 5 questions every time are necessary for the next person to create a better experiment.. which will have its own mistakes… so the next person creates a better experiment.. etc.
It’s always been a community effort, so please, stop thinking that only one person’s “success” deserves a prize.
Thursday says on February 7th, 2008 at 10:52 am
I entirely agree that science is a series of failed experiments that culminates in a new idea. But I’d have to say that money (and prizes) has motivated a surprising amount of scientific experimentation. Consider the Longitude Prize – the British government convinced a number of engineers and scientists to focus on a practical method of calculating longitude in the 18th century by offering prize money. Ditto the X Prize and Burt Rutan’s SpaceShipOne.
Gabe Karkanis says on February 8th, 2008 at 8:37 pm
Hence the movie Thank You For Smoking
free iPod Touch says on February 8th, 2008 at 8:58 pm
Congrats on winning!
Bob says on February 8th, 2008 at 9:39 pm
Very sad that you set out to decieve and heap on the BS whilst delivering zero results – yet win. Way to go America!
Rackles says on February 8th, 2008 at 9:49 pm
You made it to the front page of Digg!
Laura Schofield says on February 8th, 2008 at 10:34 pm
Brilliant article and congratulations to you! My son submitted his project last year on electromagnets, which was also a failed experiment. While too young to compete in the city competition, he got a 4 out of 4. I’ll be sure he reads this for future inspiration!
damnedviper says on February 9th, 2008 at 12:36 am
Absolutely agreed. I always used to work in the last 5 minutes of the my lab work periods and the used to present it in a way that the instructor cant help giving me the A grade.
Regards,
DamnedViper
http://cheatppc.blogspot.com
George Gardei says on February 9th, 2008 at 4:32 pm
So true. While I was still in college, I have had a failed final exam group project that accounted for a large percent of the grade. This was a programming project which had us modify an existing program written by the author of our text book to use object oriented programming techniques. The program had so intermittent interest calculation errors that we were not able to troubleshoot in time for the due date of the project. The professor was off on a business trip so we could not consult with him.
In our presentation, we presented what modifications we had done to the program, what the issues we had with the project, and what we thought the problem may be, and possible solutions. Even though the final project did not work correctly, the professor was impressed in our presentation and gave the class an A for the project. It was a learning experience for sure.
classified says on February 10th, 2008 at 11:36 pm
Wow! good job…I wish I could get people to buy my stuff like that.
name withheld says on February 11th, 2008 at 6:32 am
How unfortunate that the human mind is so typically stupified by bling, versus substance, and that the lemmings handing out these awards (as in most positions of management) are so comsumed by all of this drivel. Advertising as it’s finest, and further reinforcement that the average human being is a complete idiot.
oakling says on February 13th, 2008 at 5:05 pm
Wow, that is a negative anonymous comment there. As the child of a scientist, I think that Thursday got rewarded for the right reasons here. Lots of scientific discoveries have been made through failed experiments, simply because the people involved were honest about what was happening and stuck with it.
It’s really only a failure if you have decided in advance what the outcome should be. If you’re being honest and scientifically detached, you get to just find out what your results are and what you did that affected them, and that teaches us a lot more than going into the process with blinders on that say “if this doesn’t do this and that, it’s wrong and it failed.” Being able to answer all the questions that people throw out about it shows that you did the research very thoroughly and thought about what all the results and potential results would mean beyond just this experiment. There’s no bling, drivel, or idiocy involved here.
Cleveland Browns says on February 20th, 2008 at 10:10 pm
I always had difficulty presenting at the science fairs. Like this post says, I always practiced my presentation like a speech. I rarely thought of the questions that were going to be asked. When they asked the questions I often, got flustered because I wasn’t prepared for them.
If I ever go back to school, I hope I will be better prepared for events like this.
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JANE says on June 24th, 2009 at 6:30 am
where do you put the stuff that went wrong