Set yourself up for success

This is the first-time judges will hear or read about your project. Judges will look for a few sentences summarising your overall project, including a brief but clear outline of your project aims, how you planned to achieve your project aims, your key results and conclusions, and how your work may impact the wider community/environment. 

Judges will look for a clear project aim, your reason for choosing this area to focus on, and an understanding of the wider impact your work may have on the world. 

Consider the following questions:

• What is the aim of your project? What are you hoping to find out? What problem are you looking to resolve? And why is it an important problem to solve? 
• Why did you choose this project? Did you consider any other ideas? Who or what inspired you? 
• What will you create, or what experiment will you design, to achieve your aim(s)?
• Who might benefit from your work? What impact could your project have on the wider community/ the environment? 

Judges want to know how you carried out your project, any research that you carried out, how you planned and organised your time, your experimentation and refinement process. 

Consider the following questions:

• Did you carry out any background research before planning your work? What did you find out from the research? 
• What process and steps did you take to achieve your project aim? 
• What different ideas or approaches did you consider to achieve your project aim?  Were there any barriers that stopped you from using the most suitable approach?
• What are the benefits and negatives of the approach and method that you chose?
• How will you know if your results support your project aim? If testing was not possible, how could you have tested and evaluated your results?
• How did you plan your time and organise your work? If working as a team, how did you delegate tasks amongst yourselves? 

Judges will be looking for clear communication of results, and understanding of how your results support or challenge your project aims, and how your findings may impact the wider community/world. 

Consider the following questions:

• What were your results? What did you find out, or what did you make by completing your project? 
• Does your project outcome solve the problem you set out to tackle/meet your project aim? Did you discover anything new or unexpected? 
• What conclusions can you make based on your results?
• What impact could your results have on the wider community/world
• What difficulties did you face during the project process and how did you / could you have gone around these?
• If you were unable to complete your project as planned, what you would you have expected to see? 

Judges will be looking to see your understanding of the product development life cycle or scientific process, what skills you feel you have developed during your project, for ways you can continue to build on your project work, things you might have done differently, and what you enjoyed. 

Consider the following questions: 

• What did you learn whilst working on your project? 
• If you had more time and resources, how might you take your project further? 
• Could you bring your project to the commercial or industrial market? 
• If you could do your project again, what would you change?
• Did you learn any new skills?Were there any aspects of the project that were challenging? How did you overcome any challenges?
• What was the most enjoyable part of the project work, and why?
• What advice would you give to someone who wanted to do STEM project work in the same field? 

Throughout your entry, judges will be assessing the following skills and how you have demonstrated them during your project. Judges will be looking for: 

• Understanding and application of scientific, engineering and/or technological methods  
• Clear communication - use of visuals to demonstrate your project and answering questions directly 
• Enthusiasm for your project
• Evidence of innovation and creativity
• Problem solving
• Resilience - how well you dealt with challenges that you encountered
• Teamwork and leadership, for group projects – making sure everyone had a clear role and purpose and everyone’s ideas were heard
• Independence and self-motivation, for individual projects – your time management and goal setting