This is just gonna be a lil bit of a vlog of my ISEF Experinece. Damnit, I have to study for AP Physics C after this :(

Day 1: Travel Day

Ugh, I woke up at 4AM. My flight was at 6 - IAD to CMH. The gang met up at the airport (Matthew, my damn partner, was late - as always). The flight was united airlines, pretty dope.

We landed in Ohio and there was a bit of turbulence with our Uber driver (12 people with luggage, two cars, ggs). Hotel was pretty nice. Matthew needs to control his mouth, bro legit called the buoy "A Bomb" in front of TSA at the airport.

We went to the fair and registered. First looks inside the project hall: it's massive. I also met the Iraq dude next to my booth, seems pretty chill. We ironed our posterboard (cuz it was fabric). Then, we went to the pin exchange.

Pin exchange was HYPE. Like I got pins from Qatar, Iraq, all the States, and more. I literally have too many. My badge looks dope (apparently, I need to take care of it, cuz it takes $600 to replace). Speaking of badge, my badge stopped working, seemed like a misprint in the QR code, so I had to go and reprint it. I was stuck inside the hall for an hour or so.

Also, food was nice.

Day 2: Fun Day

We woke up at 9 AM. Apparently (According to Matthew), I set several alarms, one for 6:00, 6:30, 6:40, 6:50, and still missed every single one. The first thing we went to was COSI. It was a chill science Museum, with interactive exhibits. There was a display where they used operant conditioning to train rats to play basketball, and I also beat Sanjay in a Clash Royale 1v1. Also, there was a dancing robot.

Afterwards, we went to the STEM college & career fair. Tips:

• GO EARLY: I can't stress this enough. If you're a junior that wants to absolutely FARM scholarships, you need to go and talk to as many college reps as possible. Give them your QR Code. Glaze them. You want to stand out so they go to your booth for judging.
• Jane Street: They did some sort of quant shi, and the answer for their challenge is really obvious, don't overthink and just use the clues they give you. Also go early so you can get prizes.
• Stickers: Get as many stickers and cool stuff as you can. They look tuff.

Food, we went to "North Market". They have a lot of cool shops, with food from literally every cuisine possible - italian to mexican to even somalian. I had a shawarma (which was halal :D). If you're in columbus, definitely hit up the North Market.

Finally, we had the opening ceremony. This was the first time I went to the awards hall. Tip: if you want to make sure that you get a good view, come early, as the line gets REALLY BIG very fast before the starting time. It was really nice, but I was also tired.

Day 3: Media Day

Media day is some bs. Unless you're international or like Rishab Jain, you're not going to do anything. I spent my time chillin in the projects section.

My category was Robotics & Intelligent Machines (ROBO), and lowkey everyone was really chill. Across from me was some MIT girl that tried to act nonchalant but ended up winning 1st in the category. There was the Iraq kid that just seemed happy to be there. There was a dude next to me (S), who was the GOAT, like he was a beleiver in AGI n shi, just like me. And there was Oatmeal dude (Oat-goat), who was literally the mascot of the ROBO category. There was Macau kid, who made a fricking nanobot, and there was ROV girl, who supposedly cheated and won $10k from iEEE.

Back to topic, today was a rest day. We went back to the hotel, and did practice presentations. Matthew had a bit of a midlife crisis during our presentation, but we got it together.

In the end, we all hung out in my hotel room, and then slept, locked in for juding day.

Day 4: Judging Day >:(

Wow, this day was scary. So many ups and downs. We started with 8 STRAIGHT hours of judging, with only a 1 hour lunch break in-between. I was on like half a gram of caffiene, so I didn't eat lunch.

ROBO was a poverty category in 2025, so we only got 6 judges, while even BCHM got like 10 judges. In fact, one of our judges was out, so we literally had 5. If you want to read more about my project, I'll write a blog on it sometime soon, but essentially, it was saving the Whales with AI Buoys.

Judging was a fun experience overall, but shout out to Matthew for selling out the first judge. Anyways, here's some tips:

• Be concise. Let's be honest, no judge wants to hear you ramble for 67 minutes about your pitch. You should do 1-2 minutes MAX, and then probe them to figure out what areas they're interested in. This allows you to tailor your presentation and make it impressive to the judges.
• Point to your poster, but don't stare at it. This is pretty obvious.
• Don't "Dumb Down" the content, it can come across as offensive.
• Support whatever you say with graphs, evidence, or citations. If you have any cool results, be ready to justify them.

Tonight we party!! Yes, after 8 brutal hours of judging, we have a party! The food was epic, like there was legit chinese, mexican, and even fried chicken. Also, there was dubai chocolate. There was a DJ named "Kofdrop", although everyone thought his name was (CoughDrop). We played Fein twice. It was a total moshpit on the dance floor. Has to be one of the best nights of my life.

Day 5: Public Day

We woke up to a beautiful breakfast, as provided by ISEF and then went to "Network" with other people in our category and the sponsors. It was chill, I talked to the sponsor of ROBO - Liquid AI. I asked them what their P(doom) was. They didn't know what I was talking about :|

We had education day, which was a repeat of Media Day, except there were kids. We showed our project off to kids, and they loved it!!! Also, today was the day of controversies. Remember the ROV girl I was talking about? Apparently, her project was stolen from her Dad's company, and she was just there to present it. The judges loved it too, but we literally went online and found a robot that looked exactly like her creation. Some kids reported her, but SFS obviously ignored it. Maybe it wasn't cheating but it sure sucked, because tonight, she won 10k from special awards.

Speaking of those, we had the special awards ceremony tonight. Before, I went to North Market and ate some ramen (it was really good). Somehow, I ended up getting a special award (a full-ride to LIU), and I was happy. One of my friends won like 3 special awards. If you want to win one, I suggest you put as many buzzwords as possible. What do I mean? Well, special award judges don't have the time to scroll and read 1000 abstracts, so they do a neat trick called CONTROL+F, and they just search for keywords. So, things like "AI", "Bacteria", "Drugs", "Plant", "Water", etc. Make your title as big, and as buzz-wordy as possible.

We spent the night staying up til like 3AM at insomnia cookies with Prince William Kids. I was tired as hell. One of sanjay's friends from UIUC came over too, so that was tuff.

Day 6: Grand Awards + Farewell

This was a neat ending to the week. We woke up, and went to the awards stage, got a calm little 4th place (I really wanted top 3, but a grand award is still a grand award ig). The day went by pretty quickly, and soon, I was back home.

Here's a picture of my Science Fair Haul from 2025: