Pick my project

How Peabody picks

Peabody asks four questions, and every answer is one of three big boxes, so there is nothing to type:

1. What grade are you in? 1st–3rd · 4th–6th · 7th and up (skipped when Peabody already knows your grade)
2. How many days until the fair? This weekend · About a week · Two weeks or more
3. What have you got at home? Kitchen things · Paper, tape and toys · Outside and plants
4. What do you like? How things move · Water, ice and mixing · Growing and weather

That makes 81 ways through the questions, and every one ends on a real project, with the reason in a sentence. A project fits your grade first. Then it has to fit the days you have: a weekend means a project that tests in a day or two, so there's still time to write it up and make the board. Then Peabody looks for one that uses what you said you have at home, and last of all one about what you like.

When nothing fits all four, Peabody bends one thing at a time, the softest first, and says which: a project about something else you might like, then one that needs different things from the house, and only then one that takes longer than you said (with a nudge to start today). A kindergartener gets a 1st grade project to do with a grown-up. Tap Another one and Peabody walks on to the next that fits without asking again; tomorrow the list starts somewhere new.

This one opens the project's page and keeps it on this device, so the science fair page opens on My project with a countdown to your fair day. Print the plan gives you one sheet: the question, the hypothesis frame, what to gather and a job for each day. Nothing you tap is sent anywhere; the only thing kept is your grade (so you're asked once) and the project you keep.

Rather look for yourself? There are 118 projects on the science fair page, by grade, by time and by what you have. Grown-ups will find the rules and how much to help on the page for parents and teachers.