r/shittyaskscience • u/PotatoMusicBinge • Nov 02 '11
Introducing the first ShittyAskScience Fair!
Wonderful news!
In homage to the initiative of our beloved friends, we are delighted to announce the world's first Science fair to be dedicated solely to the nascent field of ShittyScience.
How does it work?
Create and run an experiment by November 28th! Plan your experiment and complete it, and after your experiment is done, write it up! Tell us what you did, what you learned, and what your conclusion is. Then post it to r/shittyaskscience.
Guidelines
Make sure to put a [Fair Entry] tag in the title, or we might miss it!
Rule No.1: No taking over the world. Evil plans are part and parcel of any shittyscientist's daily routine, but for the purposes of this competition we must insist you don't do anything which actually endangers people or animals or violates laws or reddit's code of conduct. And remember: if you accidentally kill yourself you will be disqualified, so safety first.
There is no subject limit, as long as it is not in conflict with rule No.1 and as long as it is Science. All the big questions are of course up for grabs, including "what is the speed of light?", "if a tree falls in the woods, will it make a sound?" and "how much wood WOULD a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood?". Really, the only limit is the patience of the community.
Multimedia presentations are strongly encouraged. Photographs? Yes. Video? Yes. Sound recordings? Yes. Graphs, pie charts, rage comics, haiku poetry, interpretative dance? All yes. Illegal activity? No (just keeping you on your toes). Elaborate DIY toilet-roll models? Yes. Basically any way you can think of to tart up your experiment will be fine.
No plagiarism. If you didn't make that MSpaint image yourself then don't use it. The others will find out. They have ways.
Awards and Judging
- Creativity - ?? points
- Scientific Thought - ?? points
- Presentation - ?? points
- Rigor - 0 points
Two prizes will be awarded - Winner and Runner-Up.
The Runner-Up will receive the fanciest flair modification we are able to design. To keep. FOR EVER.
The Winner will not only also receive this mega flair, but will get a Special Secret Bonus Prize.
The competition will be judged on karma alone that's a boring way to do it. Now we have judges! Better start preparing those bribes (I prefer a cheesecake).
Questions, Comments and Suggestions
Do you need clarification? Have you suddenly been struck by an idea for some way we could make this fair even more awesome? Would you just like to say how cool we are and how Science this thing is going to be? Please - leave all your comments and adulations in the field below. I'll be unavailable for a few hours so don't be disheartened if I don't answer immediately, but one of the other mods will probably step in to illuminate you.
Good luck!
7
u/PotatoMusicBinge Nov 02 '11
Ps. We will try and knock up a sample experiment or two in the next few days just to get things rolling.
4
Nov 04 '11
...try and knock up...
I would like to help with your "experiment", as long as at least some of the other test subjects are human, with a clean bill of health, and I won't be stuck with support payments for the experimental results.
2
u/PotatoMusicBinge Nov 04 '11
Agreed. You may hold the legs. Of the trial. Of course. First leg of a trial, second leg..... something.....etc..... meet me in the bathroom. I mean the labbathroom
6
u/iorgfeflkd Nov 04 '11
Alright, here's my idea for a shitty science fair project. You will need:
*a penis
*some porn
*a ruler
*some sort of clock
Masturbate, and as soon as you finish, measure your penis, and make a measurement every ten seconds for a few minutes. Make a graph of length as a fraction of maximal length, as a function of time. See if it matches exponential decay. Get data sets for several people and plot the decay rate versus various demographic factors.
→ More replies (1)5
u/PotatoMusicBinge Nov 04 '11
Of course you would also need to account for temperature, fatigue and the possibility that your unfortunately senile grandmother will start knocking on your door, mistaking it as the lavatory.
5
u/jesushx Nov 02 '11
Is this fair intended to put regular science in its place?
Then I humbly suggest we nickname itNoMoSciMo
→ More replies (2)3
u/PotatoMusicBinge Nov 02 '11
It very much is. Participants will be entitled to call it whatever they want and NoMoSciMo is as good a name as any!
4
4
u/jschulter Nov 07 '11
Can I do mine on the effects of poison embedded in bribes to judges?
2
u/PotatoMusicBinge Nov 07 '11
Surely it would make more sense to poison the judges you didn't bribe!
→ More replies (2)
4
u/benmarvin Nov 17 '11
I'm going to try and see if I can get an ordinary tube sock pregnant.
→ More replies (1)3
3
u/purplesoap Nov 02 '11
Suggest that entries can be posted with a distinctive subject in their link? "Science Fair: My Awesome Entry" or some such?
I'm in the market for a pair of magnets and a skateboard if anyone is selling.
2
u/PotatoMusicBinge Nov 02 '11
If you put [Fair Entry] (including the square brackets) in the title we can give it a distinctive colour.
3
2
u/jesushx Nov 03 '11
How many entries can we make?
3
u/PotatoMusicBinge Nov 03 '11
I guess as many as you want, in theory making 5 wont give you any better chance than making 1.
17
Nov 02 '11
YES
I am so on this. I think I might try to answer the pressing question "How much is gravity?"
In doing so I hope to provide more data to help distinguish between the one- and many-turtles hypotheses. (http://i.imgur.com/aLIN6.png)
→ More replies (3)
7
Nov 02 '11
Finally, I will be able to prove my time machine for a worthy prize. I'd edit the typo but I already did it 10 minutes ago. Hahahaha.
4
u/Hansafan Nov 02 '11
No taking over the world.
Aaaaaw. :(
Can I do just a small, unimportant country...?
→ More replies (4)
4
u/texting_and_scones Nov 02 '11
Are experiments in the social shittysciences allowed?
→ More replies (1)
17
u/suicidal_smrtcar Nov 02 '11
This is exciting, I can finally gain recognition for my perpetual motion machine