[bluedino]

It always seemed like there were three tiers of students/projects when the science fair came around each year.

1. Just generic stuff. Growing plants with something different in the soil/water, what shape of balsa wood makes the strongest structure, etc

2. You were taken under the wing of the science teacher, were given better ideas which were encouraged, got to use some equipment from the school, that sort of thing.

3. The highest tier, one of your parents was a biologist, engineer or chemist at one of the local big companies, you did some very specialized research, were able to use some very fancy equipment, etc. These kids almost always seemed to have the best chance of winning.

[CGMthrowaway]

I was into model rockets at the time, so I cant remember what my hypothesis was, but I remember it was whatever would allow me to shoot off the most and biggest rocket engines possible :)

[groundzeros2015]

At my school the generic stuff one because parents and teachers are dumb