Every California Science & Engineering Fair project Fairfolio holds: 17,387 entries across 24 years, with the abstract, category and awards the fair published for each one.
CSEF coverage: available historical abstracts for 2002–2019; award-listed projects only for 2021–2025, without abstracts and with explicit labels where titles were not published, except that most 2023 winners carry the abstract from CSEF's archived public showcase; public showcase abstracts for 2026. The 2020 fair was canceled.
Counts cover every year of this fair and use its own category labels, exactly as the source published them. Each one links to that category's CSEF projects.
17387 projects · showing 271–300
CSEF · 2026
Microbiology (Junior Division)
The five second rule project was to see if bacteria or fungus went on food when it falls on the ground for a certain amount of time. People would say if food falls on the ground, in five sec…
CSEF · 2026
Computational Science (Senior Division)
This project introduces a contrastive multi-view self-supervised framework for network intrusion detection (NID) that integrates finite-difference temporal modeling with Fourier Kolmogorov–A…
CSEF · 2026
Environmental Engineering (Junior Division)
Flooding is a natural hazard that can cause serious damage to homes, surroundings, and safety. This engineering project is a simple, low-cost flood alarm designed to detect rising water leve…
CSEF · 2026
Behavioral & Social Sciences (Senior Division)
This study examines how augmented feedback influences human learning in complex auditory-motor skill acquisition, using flute tone color production as a model system. Tone color is a subject…
CSEF · 2026
Zoology (Junior Division)
Objectives According to W.H.O., 400 million people worldwide suffer from alcohol addiction. Due to this, this research aimed to find a treatment for alcohol addiction through a Drosophila mo…
CSEF · 2026
Applied Mechanics (Junior Division)
The purpose of this experiment was to determine if the design affects the distance a paper airplane will travel. My hypothesis was that the plane folded with a longer body would fly farther.…
CSEF · 2026
Earth & Environmental Sciences(Senior Division)
Kelp forests are highly productive ecosystems along California’s coast. However, kelp forests have been collapsing due to a variety of factors including climate stressors and destructive gra…
CSEF · 2026
Environmental Engineering (Track 2) (Senior Division)
Approximately 931 million tons of food were wasted globally in 2019, with spoilage as a major contributor. Most homes rely on visual and smell-based spoilage checks, missing unsafe microbial…
CSEF · 2026
Electronics & Electromagnetics (Junior Division)
Household food waste creates a major economic and environmental burden, with typical U.S. families discarding 15–25% of purchased food (about $3,000 annually) and food waste contributing rou…
CSEF · 2026
Chemistry (Junior Division)
Millions of people suffer from heartburn every day, but few realize how differently antacids work chemically to neutralize acid. Acid-base reactions describe how substances interact to incre…
CSEF · 2026
Earth & Environmental Sciences (Junior Division)
The purpose of this project was to evaluate whether hydrogel made from cornstarch could reduce water loss in soil at an amount comparable to commercial hydrogel, and thus be used as an effec…
CSEF · 2026
Computational Science (Senior Division)
Financial markets are fast changing with time-series data, but large language models (LLMs) are trained only with a point-in-time data. The purpose of this project is to create a self-learni…
CSEF · 2026
Behavioral & Social Sciences (Senior Division)
Anti-vaping public service announcements (PSAs) play a vital role in conveying the health risks of vaping and motivating healthier behavior, particularly in light of the post-2020 rise in ad…
CSEF · 2026
Chemistry (Junior Division)
The textile industry is a major contributor to water pollution due to extensive use of synthetic dyes that release harmful chemicals. Meanwhile, the wine industry generates large quantities…
CSEF · 2026
Behavioral & Social Sciences (Senior Division)
Short-form video (SFV) platforms such as TikTok and YouTube Shorts have become ubiquitous among adolescents, yet little is known about how excessive use affects the neural mechanisms of self…
CSEF · 2026
Computational Science (Senior Division)
Globally, systemic diseases like cirrhosis, ankylosing spondylitis (AS), and hypertension affect over a billion people, yet their detection depends on invasive procedures or late-stage imagi…
CSEF · 2026
Earth & Environmental Sciences (Track 2) (Junior Division)
This study builds on last year’s research demonstrating that spider plants (Chlorophytum comosum) reduce formaldehyde (HCHO) levels in polluted air in a sealed environment. This year, I test…
CSEF · 2026
Applied Mechanics (Junior Division)
For this project we are redesigning fire engines using modular parts that can be mass-produced, which should help cut down on manufacturing costs and production times, while still meeting sa…
CSEF · 2026
Medicine & Physiology (Junior Division)
Millions of people have incorrect standing postures and gait and a majority of these people are unaware they even have this issue. Many people also have undiagnosed differences in leg length…
CSEF · 2026
Materials Science (Junior Division)
This project investigated whether connecting dissimilar metals predictably accelerates corrosion (galvanic attack) or prevents it (cathodic protection). Seven types of bolts (including steel…
CSEF · 2026
Biochemistry/ Molecular Biology (Junior Division)
Gelatin forms a strong three dimensional network during gelation, where protein chains trap water within a branching framework. This project investigates the biochemical effects of citric ac…
CSEF · 2026
Applied Mechanics (Senior Division)
Lightweight load-bearing structures are widely used in aerospace, protective packaging, and deployable engineering, where reliability depends on resisting compressive collapse. Origami tesse…
CSEF · 2026
Computational Science (Senior Division)
DNA origami design automation has advanced rapidly, but scaffold sequence is typically treated as fixed, despite emerging methods enabling custom scaffold synthesis. This project presents a…
CSEF · 2026
Microbiology (Junior Division)
This project tested if hand sanitizer or soap was more effective at killing bacteria on children and adults. It was believed that soap would be better across the board, but that there would…
CSEF · 2026
Applied Mechanics (Junior Division)
Earthquakes pose significant threat to the world. In areas like California and Japan, deadly earthquakes occur frequently, causing tsunamis, tearing cities apart, and causing buildings to co…
CSEF · 2026
Physics & Astronomy (Senior Division)
Liquids are ubiquitous in industrial and chemical applications. They are typically composed of geometrically rough colloidal particles that exhibit complex dynamical behavior arising from mi…
CSEF · 2026
Biochemistry/ Molecular Biology (Senior Division)
Medulloblastoma, the most common malignant pediatric brain tumor, is driven in ~30% of cases by aberrant Hedgehog signaling through GLI transcription factors. FDA-approved upstream inhibitor…
CSEF · 2026
Microbiology (Junior Division)
The project question was how do varying levels of phosphates affect the population density of bioluminescent dinoflagellates. It was hypothesized that if the different levels of phosphates a…
CSEF · 2026
Plant Biology (Junior Division)
The original question for my project was; which soil type (Rocky/gravelly. sandy, Clay, potting soil, or silty soil (fill dirt)) will allow a plant to best exhibit gravitropism? Through my r…
CSEF · 2026
Physics & Astronomy (Junior Division)
ABSTRACT Purpose: Telescopes, instruments that allow us to observe what is unseen to the naked eye, can be expensive and made from non-recycled materials. Using recycled materials, I constru…