Every year kids are overwhelmed by two things during the holidays, boredom and sugar. This year instead of letting your kids spend hours in front of the television give them the opportunity to create, experiment and to develop their science skills. One of the best ways to do this is with the Lego Mindstorms NXT 2.0.

The Lego Mindstorms NXT 2.0 is a Lego robotics kit. It comes with 612 pieces, the instructions to create four robots and with software to program your robot. This kit can be used to explore the field of robotics or electronics. It can also be used as a form of holiday entertainment and as a science fair project tool.

What makes this kit special is that it is really advanced for the price. It offers a 32 bit microprocessor, a good sized matrix screen, four input ports, three output ports, speakers and USB and Bluetooth communication possibilities. This is a very popular kit that kids really enjoy.

Working with a robotics kit is challenging. When you first get the NXT 2.0 you will want to read through all of the instructions. This will give you an idea about what you can do with the kit. Next build each of the sample robots. This will teach you how to connect the parts and how to program the robots that you build. Finally you can design, program and operate robots of your very own.

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1. Ask your teacher if you can take 15 mintues to do a quick one questionnaire for your science fair project with the class.

2. If yes, ask the students to write on a piece of paper their first name and what color they think their first name represents. There is no right or wrong, just fun to do.

3. Then have them go to My Color and have them insert their name. See what happens to the background color of the page!

4. Ask each student to then write the background color of the page after they inserted their first name and Amaze Me button.

5. You may even want to hand out a form for your friends to fill out.

6. Remember to write your hypothesis before you do the survery.

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The Cornucopia Institute has just released their groundbreaking report Behind The Bean — The Heroes and Charlatans of the Natural and Organic Soy Foods Industry.

The Cornucopia Institute’s Organic Soy Full Report and accompanying Scorecard rates companies that market organic soy foods, such as soymilk, tofu and “veggie burgers,” based on ten criteria that are important to organic consumers—showcasing companies that are truly committed to the spirit and letter of the organic law while exposing those that do not rate highly or were unwilling to share their sourcing and production practices in our survey.

The scorecard sheds light on questions such as:

- Do the soybeans come from American organic farmers, or are they imported from China, India or South America?

- Is the company devoted to supporting organic agriculture by sourcing only organic soybeans and marketing only organic products?

- Does the company use loopholes in the organic standards to source cheaper non-organic ingredients even when organic ones are available?

Part I of the comprehensive report explores the reasons for asking these questions, including why organic consumers should be wary of Chinese imports, given the lax oversight by the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) over organic certifiers working in China.

Part II of the report exposes the “dirty little secret” of the “natural” soy foods industry: the widespread use of hexane in processing. Hexane is strictly prohibited in organic food processing, but is used to make “natural” soy foods and even some that are “made with organic ingredients,” such as Clif Bars®. Hexane is a neurotoxic petrochemical solvent that is listed as a hazardous air pollutant with the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).

Both the report and scorecard highlight the good news in the organic soyfood industry: in every market and product category, there are true heroes, both national and local manufacturers, supplying ethically-produced organic food that are worthy of consumer support.

POSTSCRIPT: It would be interesting to do a Soy Bean DNA science fair project, wouldn’t it?

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The most important formula to know when working with triangles is the Pythagorean Theorem.

A^2=B^2+C^2

You can use this formula when collecting or analyzing data for your entry into a online science fair contest.

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Straight line motion is calculated as follows:

a=(v2-v1)/t

where:

a= acceleration

t= time

v1= initial speed

v2=final speed

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Acceleration is the change in an object’s velocity over time. It is calculated using the formula: acceleration = change in speed/time interval.

This formula will be useful in your fuel cell car science fair projects.

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When you work on a physics science fair project you need to utilize common formulas to analyze the data that you collect. One formula that you will most likely need to use is the formula for speed. This formula is:

Speed = distance/time

You can use this formula for fuel cell car science fair projects.

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If you need to collect data that involves length measurements then these conversion factors will be helpful:

1 centimeter = .394inches

1 meter = 39.4 inches

1 meter = 3.28 feet

1 kilometer = .621 miles

You may need to use length measurements in your fuel cell car science fair projects.

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Multiples of SI units are very important to understand when you are collecting data that have large measurements. Some of the most common prefixes for multiples of SI units include: hecto- which is 10^2 power, kilo- which is 10^3 power, mega- which is 10^6 power, giga- which is 10^9 power and tera- which is 10^12 power.

Use these prefixes to simplify your data summaries for your energy science fair projects

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It is important to understand the prefixes used to describe subdivisions of SI units. For example, pico- means 10^-12 power, nano- means 10^-9 power, micro- means 10^-6 power, milli- means 10^-3 power and centi-means 10^-2 power.

Keep these prefixes in mind when creating your own energy science fair projects

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