My display board

What goes where on a tri-fold

A standard science fair board is a tri-fold 36 inches high and 48 inches wide: a middle panel 24 inches wide and two wings of 12. Judges read it like a page, left to right and top to bottom, so the sections go in the order you did the project. Here is the classic layout:

The title goes across the top of the middle panel (22 × 5 in). The results take the most room, because they are the heart of the board: the table and the graph a judge will ask you about. Leave the space under the conclusion for photos or drawings of your test, since most school rules say no liquids, batteries or living things on the table.

The other two layouts move things round: Big results (the results fill the middle panel; the steps move to the right, under the conclusion.) and Big question (the question takes the top of the middle, under the title; the left panel holds the hypothesis and materials.) Whichever you pick, write the words yourself: judges like a child's own words and drawings best. Ready for the questions? Practise with Peabody the judge.

A free board template, printed at real size

Once your cards are placed, the board kit prints them at their real size on ordinary Letter or A4 paper, no poster shop needed: every card (7 pieces, about 24 Letter pages for the classic layout), the whole board one panel at a time so no page crosses a fold (32 pages), or the 13 section titles to cut out (Question, Research, Hypothesis, Variables, Materials, Steps, Data, Results, Graph, Observations, Conclusion, Abstract, Next Time). Each page has cut marks, a strip that overlaps the next page, a name like B3 and a 10 cm bar: print at 100% ("Actual size"), measure the bar, then trim and glue. The title comes in three kinds of letters, it counts the letters for anyone using stickers, and the QR code can be left off for fairs that don't allow them.

The engineering board

A project where you build something and make it better (a bridge, a boat, a parachute, a catapult) can enter a fair's engineering category instead. Its board has the same six places, at the same sizes, with different questions: The problem where question goes, Design goal where hypothesis goes, Materials and limits where materials goes, Designs I tried where steps goes, Test results where results goes, Best design and why where conclusion goes. For those projects the kit has a switch, Science entry or Engineering entry, and prints the engineering cards and their own 13 titles (Problem, Design Goal, Research, Limits, Materials, Sketches, Designs, Testing, Data, Results, Improvements, Best Design, Next Time). The engineering design sheet has the table for testing and improving each design.