70th Annual Orange County Science & Engineering Fair

Tentative Fair Schedule:

Saturday & Sunday April 26-27, 2025: High School Hackathon at Discovery Cube

Affiliated Fairs Selection:

• California Science & Engineering Fair: we will select 6th – 12th grade projects for CSEF 2025.
• Thermo Fisher Junior Innovators Challenge: we will select 6th – 8th grade projects for TFJIC 2025.
• International Science & Engineering Fair: we will select top 9th – 12th grade projects to represent OCSEF at ISEF 2025. **subject to change**

OCSEF Multi-Step Process:

1. Step 1 Project Registration – Required for ALL projects! No exceptions to the deadline. OCSEF Online Application
   • Closes Monday, February 3, 2025 (11:59pm PST)
   • Click HERE for an OCSEF 2025 quick guide for students & teachers.
   • Projects that use vertebrate animals, human subjects, and/or hazards (chemicals, organisms, tissues, equipment, tools, devices and dangerous materials) will need to be reviewed BEFORE the student starts the project and approved by the SRC. These students are encouraged to complete the project registration step as soon as possible.
   • Additional details and links to Certification Forms can be found below or on our Rules page (HERE).
2. Step 2 SRC Review – Once registration is completed, your application will automatically be reviewed by our Scientific Review Committee (SRC). Approval is required by SRC before your project is allowed to move to Step 3.
3. Step 3 Project Submission – This includes a slide deck, video, and lab notebook, along with any Regulated Research or Continuation Project forms. No exceptions to the deadline.
   • Closes Monday, February 24, 2025 (11:59pm PST)
4. Step 4 Project Review – Once submission is completed, your application will automatically be reviewed again by OCSEF. Final approval by OCSEF is required before your project is allowed to participate in Step 5.
5. Step 5 Judging – Projects are judged for Board Category Awards by a judging panel and occur on Zoom. Students will be assigned an interview time.
   • Wednesday, March 12, 2025
6. Step 6 Awards Ceremony – All participants with judged projects are invited to our in-person awards ceremony at Chapman University. **Date/Location are subject to change**
   • Sunday, March 23, 2025

The Scientific Review Committee (SRC) team will review every project registered and will send an email with either approval or to ask for more information based on the project description provided. Check your email often (including spam folder) for notifications from noreply@mail.smapply.net. Please note that the SRC must approve your project BEFORE you are able to move to step 2, which is project submission. Please contact src@ocsef.org with additional questions.

OCSEF does not have an appeal process. All judges’ decisions are final. 

Important:

1. DO NOT CREATE DUPLICATE PROJECT APPLICATIONS. Team Projects: Only create and register one application per project. You will add all partner information to one application, and partners will be invited as Collaborators to the application.

2. When creating a SurveyMonkey account and completing your project application:

• Use STUDENT name – do NOT use parent/guardian name. Only students can register for OCSEF.
• Use a personal STUDENT email address (NO SCHOOL email addresses). We will not be able to contact you if you use a school email address, due to school/district firewalls.
• Sign up for a free Gmail account if you have no other alternative

3. Students will receive email notifications from noreply@mail.smapply.net (check spam folder). If parents want to receive email notifications, the student will have to add a parent as a Collaborator to their project application.

4. You can work on your project application over multiple sessions by saving your progress. After each on-line session with your application, click on “Save and Continue Editing.”

5. All required tasks must be completed before you are able to complete registration of your project application. For each task, complete all sections, review to make sure no edits are needed, then select “Mark as Complete”. You will see the status of each task in the Task List on the left-hand side of your application page. The status of completion for each task is represented by a circle symbol.

• Task has not been started = circle with “no color” inside
• Task has been started but incomplete = circle half-filled with a green color
• Task is complete = circle completely filled with a solid green color plus a white checkmark
• Clicking “Mark as Complete” for a task does not mean your project is registered.

6. Once ALL tasks are completed, be sure to click the “Submit” button to finalize your Project Registration. If you do not click submit, then your project application will NOT be registered and will not move to the next stage. NOTE: Project applications CANNOT be edited once finalized. Review your answers carefully before selecting “Submit”.

Project Registration

All projects require project registration as the first step. The OCSEF is using SurveyMonkey Apply for our online registration platform (OCSEF Online Application). Be sure to review our complete Rules and Guidelines before completing registration.

Students must ask their teacher at the OC school they attend to review their project application and complete the Teacher Approval process, before they can complete their Project Registration. This will be part of the online application. Teachers can either (1) complete a hard copy form that the student uploads or (2) provide online approval.

Certification Forms

Projects involving any of the following must follow proper state & federal safety regulations and submit the corresponding Certification forms as part of the Step 1 Project Registration process. See OCSEF Rules for the forms and further details.

(1) Vertebrate animals (not including human subjects)
(2) Human subjects (this includes yourself, human datasets, and testing of own device)
(3) Hazards (chemicals, organisms, tissues, equipment, tools, devices and dangerous materials)
(4) Regulated research at a university laboratory or research facility

NOTE: If Certification Forms are required for vertebrate animals, human subjects, or hazards, then students must complete the Step 1 Project Registration process, with appropriate certification forms, BEFORE the start of any experiments. The Scientific Review Committee (SRC) will review the project and send the student a “project approval email”, before their project can move to the Step 3 Project Submission phase. At this point, the student(s) can move forward with their project.

Project Submission

Once a student completes their Project Registration and receives approval from the SRC team, the following project components must be uploaded to the same SurveyMonkey system to complete Project Submission by the deadline: OCSEF Online Application

• Slide Deck using one of the OCSEF templates (maximum 12 slides)
• Video about your project (maximum 3 minutes)
• Lab Notebook pictures of key pages (5 images)
• Regulated Research certification form (if applicable)
• Continuation Project form (if applicable)

Slide Deck

Use one of the OCSEF Slide Deck templates and comply with all criteria and formatting clearly outlined in the first slide of the template. Once the slide deck presentation is completed, save the file as a PDF and upload it when you submit your project online. The use of a standard presentation format assures equity in judging. See OCSEF Rules for the templates and further details.

• Science Slide Deck
• Engineering Slide Deck
• Math/Computer Science Slide Deck

Video

Lab Notebook

Students should have a lab notebook, which is a daily record of when they worked on their project, what they did, how they did it, and why. A lab notebook can be handwritten or digital. Students should use their lab notebook to document the experiment, engineering activity, or programming they performed that day. All experimental measurements (e.g. raw data table), calculations, math proofs, computer code/algorithms, observations & redesigns NEED to be in the Lab Notebook. This is what the judges wnat to see from the Lab Notebook…NOT graphs, references, pictures of students or conclusions which should be in the slide deck. You must submit 5 different images, each representing an individual page of your Lab Notebook. Images need to be easy to read by the judges. See OCSEF Rules (HERE) for additional details on image files.

Regulated Research Form

Students must include a completed Regulated Research Certification Form if they conducted any part of their research at a private or academic lab, college/university lab, hospital, industrial lab, or private facility (other than the school they attend). This form should be completed AFTER the project is finished by the principal investigator of the lab or facility.

Continuation Projects Form

Students must indicate if the project is a continuation project from a previous year. Any project based on the student’s prior research must document that the additional research is a substantial expansion from prior work. Students will also need to provide the prior year’s abstract and research plan/project summary.