Solar cells have been traditionally made of silicon. The element has dominated the sola cell and alternative energy market for years. However the days of silicon as kingpin of the solar cell creation may soon be at an end.

It’s successor may well be a material called Perovskite. This alternative is not just cheaper to manufacture solar cells with, it is also relatively easier to process as compared with silicon. While silicon based cells have an efficiency of 25%, the perovskite cells are still at 22% efficiency. This may seem a negative point till you consider that the first perovskite cell was at 3% and in the last few years the efficiency has been constantly improved.

However as Lin Leong of the Institute of Materials Research and Engineering in Singapore pointed out, the challenge to developing efficient and cheap commercially available solar panels has until now been dominated by silicon, with emerging alternative solar cells considered minor players.

With perovskite that autonomy and domination is now at risk. The promise of better efficiency, combined with its lower production costs makes the perovskite solar cells a viable and attractive option for commercial start up companies. This is one science project that they are literally going to be pouring over.

The hair you have can be straight or curled, crimped or coiled. You may be happy with it just the way it is, or you may be always trying to find new ways to style it. Well, the science of curls is being taken rather seriously at the Purdue University by a bunch of scientific researchers.

They are studying how the interplay of gravity, texture of the hair and the follicle that it grows out of, can all contribute to the actual manner in which the hair grows. They are also looking at symmetrical and asymmetrical follicles to see why the former grows straight hair and the latter curled.

Studying hair with computers in labs may seem like overkill, but each science project has its own importance and use. Currently the researchers are tying to figure out how the curly hair is made more vulnerable to heat during visits to the hair dresser.

Since straight hair conducts heat better it is less prone to burning than those curls. Now the team of researchers at Purdue University is conducting a science project to protect those curls by finding the optimum heat for styling them without causing them permanent damage. That’s knowledge that the curls on my hair could do with too.

When you look around the room what do you see? For that matter when you are out in the park, how do you see the trees, the grass and the flowers? Now wonder how your dog, who is along with you in the park, sees the same things and comprehends them?

Imagine how entertaining and educative it would be to be able to see the world through the eyes of animals. How many mysteries would be solved if we could see how animals in the wild actually behaved when there were no human beings near by.

Well, that’s exactly what you can do with CritterCam at National Geographic. The team of researchers attaches a camera system to a range of animals in the wild to reveal their point of view. They are then able to study the animal’s routine and behaviour without physically being present.

Of course it’s not all that easy to set up. They have to tranquillise the animal and then set upon it the harness which will contain the actual camera. Not to mention that the camera itself could develop a multitude of issues when in use. Still, the results so far have been highly encouraging for this science project.

When Google X first revealed their self driving car it was considered a publicity stunt which would die a natural death. However the autonomous car has managed to drive 2.64 million kilometers since 2009 and yes it is not exactly perfect just yet.

In it’s monthly report Google admits that the car went crashing, albeit extremely slowly, into a bus. It also had to get out of the path of a broom -wielding woman chasing a duck across a road in a wheelchair. Yes that actually did happen.

What’s more the self driving car is learning how to honk like a performing art. Not fuelled with human emotion and passion, but to be polite, considerate, and only honk when it makes driving safer for everyone. It would be an interesting science project to determine just what the “honking algorithm” should have.

There are about 34 prototype vehicles on road now as part of the autonomous car program with Google X. The cars drive about ten to fifteen thousand autonomous miles per week and have manual controls activated for part of their journeys as well.  Most of the driving takes place around Mountain View in California,  Austin (Texas), Phoenix (Arizona), and Kirkland (Washington State).

One of the most painful parts of monitoring blood glucose through traditional glucose monitors is the daily pin prick required. A new type of monitor is now being used in Europe, it’s not yet available in the US, which does away with the daily pin prick. The FreeStyle Libre uses a small sensor which is covered by a water resistant patch the size of a coin.

The sensor is inserted under the skin and remains there for 14 days. After one hour of being implanted in the body it will give glucose readings and monitor trends on a touch screen device that is brought close to the sensor. It is usually applied to the upper arm and the insertion process does not require any specialised training.

The touch screen device can scan the sensor through the clothes and is very unobtrusive. You take less than four seconds to perform the scan and a single ding sound lets you know that the process is over. Now you can read your glucose related data instantly. It’s accuracy is high and can be used for dosing insulin. This is one science project that will really make a difference in the way diabetics health care is handled in the future.

So you want to go to Mars and you know you have to train to live in that hostile terrain. Where do you go to train for that – apparently Utah! Utah’s Mars Desert Research Station (MDRS), run by the Mars Society is giving future Mars visitors an idea of what they will have to face while walking through stands of Ericameria nauseosa and Epehdra viridis.

The Mars Desert Research Station was constructed in 2002 and has been continuously visited by a wide range of researchers, including astrobiologists, soil scientists, journalists, engineers, and geologists. The researchers practice collecting fungi, algae, cyanobacteria, lichens, and vascular plants from the grounds in simulated research. The suits restrict their vision and movement just as it would be on Mars.

At present they may be simply donning spacesuits and play acting about being on Mars but the working conditions on the Red Planet are likely to be rather similar to what these people are doing right now. It’s a matter of getting used to the type of science projects that they will be involved in, if they make it through the program and land up as the first colonisers of Mars.

Pluto may no longer be a part of the nine planets of the Solar System officially, but it is still very much a topic of interest to many researchers and novices. When the spacecraft New Horizons sent back images of Pluto from it’s flypast, a whole new basket of information was revealed about the distant, dwarf planet.

The fact that Pluto is a cold planet is not a surprise to anyone given it’s distance from the sun. What is an interesting fact is that the icy surface of the planet is constantly renewed by a process known as convection. The layer of solid nitrogen ice within Pluto’s distinctive “heart” feature, which is a large plain informally known as Sputnik Planum, was brought out in images from New Horizons.

The ice on the surface is not millions of years old, rather it seems relatively newly formed as per the data the scientists have gathered. This points to some sort of geological activity under the surface for the planet. The soft nitrogen ice is a pliable material for the geological changes to occur. The scientific study of this phenomenon is going to continue for a while before definite reasons can be found for its origin.

Getting robotic arms designed may seem old hat but making them do exactly what they have been programmed to, is not always a cakewalk. Stanford Professor and IEEE Fellow, Oussama Khatib encourages his students to come up with new possibilities using the control theory and the various robotic arms in the lab. These include  the Kuka LWR, the Kuka IIWA, the Barrett WAM, and the Kinova Jaco. For those not aware of the fact, these are huge robotic arms used in the indutries to perform tasks such as assembly, welding, and painting.

The student team has now got to come up with something that needs computer vision and force control. The idea is to get them to make the robotic arm perform a function that has to be predecided and programmed. The students who take Khatib’s class get to come up with more creative and innovative uses of the industrial robotic arms. In most cases the results can be quite unexpected.

Past science projects have included complicated stuff like figuring out the best move in a game of dominos, or staying one step ahead of a moving model space station to prepare for docking, or learning to play a tune on a xylophone by listening to it.

Frozen water may not seem like too much of a danger to you, but apparently it can be quite a disaster in the making if not taken care of. Slipping on a sheet of ice on the road is a tiny problem as compared to what ice can do to an air plane. Why then is removal of ice a major issue for optimal functioning of an air plane?

In cold weather ice can build up along the edges of the wings of the air plane. When this ice gets attached to the wings the shape of the wings is temporarily changed. As a successful flight depends largely on the aerodynamic shape of the air plane wings which causes adequate lift, a change in shape can mean a change in their ability to generate lift.

Without the right lift force acting on the air plane there is a good chance that it’s flight pattern will be adversely affected. Indeed this is what happened to the Boeing 737 which took off from Washington DC in 1982 and crashed into the frozen Potomac river killing 74 people.

The solution is simple. De-icing of the plane before take off. Commercially high pressure blasts of antifreeze are used to de-ice planes. However new science projects are being undertaken to find and even faster and more effective way to de-ice planes.

Playing sports is an important part of any healthy person’s life. The will to excel, to push your physical body beyond what it can comfortably achieve is a great one. In ancient times sports was the way warriors prepared themselves for active battle. Even today sports competitions can very often resemble actual battles, both on and off the field!

For football fans Adidas has come up with a great new plaything. This toy called MiCoach is actually a smart ball. And it really does have some smart features when it comes to a soccer ball. You have had to fill air in your balls before, but this one actually comes with it’s own charging stand!

After being charged for a duration of one hour the MiCoach will be able to track up to 2000 kicks. Yes you can actually play with it! It will give statistics on speed, power, spin, trajectory, and more for your practice session. An app helps you streamline videos of your play as well as figuring out patterns in your practice session.

if you want to take your game to the next level, Micoach is happy to help by pointing out exactly what you are doing. Of course you still have to figure out how to do the right stuff more often, but as long as this science project points the way, a bit more practice is all that you will need to go pro!