In this blog I will tell you about my Innovation Day project, how I felt, and explain the process overall.

 

This year for Innovation Day, the Grade 8 class was tasked with building sleds, or, another option was to do an enrichment project to enter for the Ottawa Regional Science Fair. My partner and I both decided to enter for the Science fair, and do the enrichment project. Our project was called Espresso Expectations, and it was about seeing if caffeine affects memory, and if the placebo effect could be in play. In order to prove this, we had a number of subjects be tested on memory, and be tested again with a caffeine pill, but unbeknownst to them, some of them took placebos. Here is the slide deck to see for yourself what happened:

 

For my reflection, I decided to focus on three main parts, the past, the present, and the future. For the past, I decided to ask myself the question “How did you feel before presenting this project?” And to answer this question, I felt nervous about presenting, because I had never done this before, and I hadn’t done anything like this before. But I also felt confident, confident that I might do well, even if I didn’t get in first, second, or third place, as long as I give it a shot. For the present, I asked myself “How did you feel after presenting to parents?” And to answer this question, I felt a sense of relief, that I had surpassed myself in previous years, and reached a new level of experience. I feel that I am ready for future presentations like this, and that this knowledge will apply in the upcoming Science Fair. And now, for my last question, which is about the future, I asked myself, “Thinking of your own project and the other projects you saw, what would you do differently next time?” For this question, I would have to say that I would definitely increase the number of subjects, so that we could have more accurate results. And another thing we would have done is do a double blind test, where both the subject and tester doesn’t know the pill. We would also have more research to back up the information, and present much better than we did before.

 

In conclusion, I by far enjoyed this Innovation Day project more than any other project that I have done in the past, and I hope that I could do something similar in the near future. I hope you enjoyed reading this, and that is all I have to say.