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Science Fair Projects

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"Science Fair Projects" gives you the complete step-by-step instructions for 18 different scientific projects. With easy to follow directions, you can build a thermometer, visualize sound waves, levitate cubes, grow bioluminescent algae, turn a toy car into a solar-powered robot and even extract your own DNA. The projects listed here are great starting points for any scientific investigation. All projects come from Instructables.com, are written by our creative community, and contain pictures for each step so you can easily make these yourself.

Instructables is the most popular project-sharing community on the Internet. We provide easy publishing tools to enable passionate, creative people like you to share their most innovative projects, recipes, skills, and ideas. Instructables has over 40,000 projects covering all subjects, including crafts, art, electronics, kids, home improvement, pets, outdoors, reuse, bikes, cars, robotics, food, decorating, woodworking, costuming, games, and more. Check it out today!

Laura Khalil

Editor: Outside, Play, Technology, Workshop

Instructables.com

The Chaos Machine (Double Pendulum) by sbtroy

Mouse Trap car by LarrySDonald

Mechanical Wave Driver for Chladni Plate by Azraelsrebellion

A simple mechanical resonance demonstrator by 5Volt

Science Fair Display Board by caitlinsdad

Diamagnetic Levitation Experiment by Otherpower

Crystallization of homemade sodium acetate by indigoandblack

Grow Your Own Bioluminescent Algae by ScaryBunnyMan

5 minute DNA Extraction in a Shot Glass by macowell

Let's go green! Build a Solar Powered Parabolic Cooker! by Weissensteinburg

RC truck robot conversion by OracsRevenge

Build an Amazing Tesla CD Turbine by mrfixitrick

Science Fair - Articulated Hand < $20 by rgraylint

Mousetrap Car Racer by geek27

Oobleck: The Dr. Seuss Science Experiment by fungus amungus

Giant Fresnel Lens Deathray: An Experiment in Optics by DrSimons

Salt Water and Aluminum Foil Night Light by egbertfitzwilly

Pringles Wind Turbine (Pleech) - Version One by mikejedw

27 comments

Feb 12, 2011. 11:26 AM

patriots8888 says:

i dont get it most of these aare not experiments just how to make something

Jul 3, 2009. 2:29 PMjuonfire11 says:

i wish there would be more experiments

Jan 18, 2010. 5:35 PMangelfish22 says:

i know i cant seem to find any that i can do

Jan 19, 2010. 4:32 PMzeplin00 says:

same here

Mar 3, 2010. 4:30 PMNear24 says:

ya, one of my favorites is the "hot ice" or making sodium acetate tryhoxide out of vinegar and baking soda and then freezing it! its so fun!!! XD

Jan 9, 2010. 11:43 AM

egbertfitzwilly says:

I didn't know about this page when I wrote the instructable but:
http://www.instructables.com/id/Salt-Water-and-Aluminum-Foil-Night-Light/

was intended as a classroom or science fair project.

Apr 30, 2009. 12:16 PMSteinzel says:

Kelvin's Thunderstorm is easy to build out of PVC and a few tin cans. I made one a few years ago. My girlfriends son got a first place with it.

Nov 2, 2009. 3:04 PMmusa669 says:

what was that about

Nov 2, 2009. 3:24 PMSteinzel says:

Drops of water build up a static charge until it's big enough to discharge through a neon bulb. It's quite an impressive thing once it's all set up.
Just Google "Lord Kelvins Thunderstorm".

Aug 8, 2009. 9:17 AMweekend-fun says:

the truck is sweet

Jul 27, 2009. 7:57 PMericthered1996 says:

why only 1 chemical experiment I mean come on, the people want to know how to make dangerous chemicals.

May 15, 2009. 7:05 AMyaneli_emoxa13 says:

haha thts cool but can't find anything easier

Dec 13, 2008. 3:48 PMjimihendrix4753 says:

Randofo, you should include in this guide a rocket instructable, like make magazine 14's compressed-air rocket. All you do is make the rockets out of styrene or acetate and use foam to make different nosecones. To measure it, you make a basic clinometer with a tripod, a protractor, and some other parts. Then you use the trig function TAN to find the altitude. This is my science fair project currently. PS: I know kipkay works for Make, maybe he made an instructable for the compressed-air rocket. I'll look. Thank you and great guide!

200

Dec 13, 2008. 4:01 PM

randofo says:

There used to be a toy one with a built in altimeter. I never actually played with it, but often wondered how they did this. I think this may have been somehow accomplished with a timer and a tilt sensor and the rocket would measure the amount of time it took for the tilt sensor to activate and use this to determine the height (so goes my theory). It was far too cheap (in my opinion) to include an actual accelerometer, so they must have had some sort of hack going on in there.

200

Dec 13, 2008. 4:31 PM

randofo says:

I mean, I think when the tilt switch is activated (at the moment of its return to Earth), it turns on the timer which runs until it impacts back into the ground. Since the rate of a falling object is pretty standard, you can calculate the height by the length of the fall.

Feb 27, 2009. 7:01 PMastro boy says:

woudint it be a sensitive pressure gauge ,as it gets higher the pressure decreases . you can make a simple one by fitting a balloon onto a jar and gluing a piece of card that goes from the center of the balloon to a couple of inches away from the jar to use as a weather pressure system

200

Mar 1, 2009. 7:20 PM

randofo says:

I suppose you could fit a pressure gauge in there... hmmm... I never considered that. That would probably require as little circuitry as a tilt switch. One of these days I should buy one of these model rockets and rip it open. They were pretty cheap.

Mar 13, 2009. 1:16 PMastro boy says:

if you see the nerf adds thay have a vortex throw thing wicth has a macanical counter system and also they have thoes macanical pound force gauges that pull the needle to the highest point and don't pull it back in ps did the rocket have a digital display/solar panel/required batres/or a wide up clock if not than this is the only way they could have made it tell you how high it went some pics of the rocket might help me tell you better PS I am only a boy but i know what ime talking about

Feb 26, 2009. 7:13 AMtengaman says:

hey dude nice guide but u should add the cd hovercraft 8-]

Feb 25, 2009. 8:59 AMemdarcher says:

http://www.instructables.com/id/Pringles-Wind-Turbine-Pleech---Version-One/add this to your guide its a perfect science fair project instructable

Dec 11, 2008. 4:33 PM

westfw says:

No coil guns?
IIRC, a fair number of "SF Project IDEAS" have shown up in assorted comments and forums. Is there any way to point these "guides" at individual comments?

200

Dec 11, 2008. 4:42 PM

randofo says:

No coil guns. I was awfully tempted to include a Ruben's tube Instructable, but I tried to keep the list relatively tame. In terms of comments and forums, the short answer is not currently (without a bit of hacking the system), but I will pass this suggestion along.

142

Dec 11, 2008. 12:58 PM

Kiteman says:

Oh, there's one of...

...two of...

...three of mine in one guide!

Thanks, Randy!

200

Dec 11, 2008. 2:45 PM

randofo says:

Yes, one would almost think that teach this stuff for a living ;-)

Dec 10, 2008. 9:51 PM

kelseymh says:

Thank you for putting this together!

210

Dec 10, 2008. 7:57 PM

Phil B says:

A number of times I tried to get my kids to consider a science fair project demonstrating all of the applications of Bernouli's principle. It explains so many things we encounter in daily life. But, they never would. Now they are adults and tease me about Bernouli's principle. It still would make a good science fair project.