With illustrations and copy blocks complete and trimmed to size, you are ready to start mounting. For paper products use “rubber cement”, obtainable at stationery stores. Coat both surfaces completely, but do not press them together until each is dry. To avoid air bubbles, first separate the coated surfaces with a “slip sheet” of waxed paper or aluminum foil, which can be slipped out when the materials are positioned exactly. Then press into place with a soft cloth or rubber roller. (Excess cement will rub off when dry, without damage.) Also consider using double-coated adhesive tape for mounting. It is obtainable at art-supply stores.
Assemble your structure, mount your lighting fixtures, and plug them in. Install whatever equipment needs to be displayed. Put your project notebook, project report, and handout brochure in place. Your science fair exhibit is finished and you are ready to compete!
Typical arrival day activities at the 14th National Science Fair-International, Albuquerque, New Mexico, 1963.
COMPETITION AND ITS REWARDS
Some of you can look forward to enjoying within the next several years a thrilling experience.
Some morning in May you will bid your parents farewell, walk up the steps of an airliner, and touch down a few hours later in a distant city. For the next five days you will be caught up in the excitement and fascination of the National Science Fair-International!
The full impact of your nation’s science fair hits you the morning you set up your exhibit in the auditorium. You knew that you had a good exhibit when you entered the district fair back home in March. (Since this is your second year of serious competition, and you have improved both your science project and your exhibit, you weren’t too surprised to win there.) But regional and statewide competition is even tougher, so you were holding your breath until they finally called your name!
Now here you are, and as you appraise the 400 other exhibits going up besides yours, you realize this is the “big league”. These guys and gals are really good. But some of your awe evaporates as you talk with your neighbors, and while you help the pretty blonde with the guppies position her heavy aquaria. Win or not, this is going to be fun!
And so it is—during the tension of the judging the next day, when you show your exhibit to the public the day after that, and throughout the tours of research laboratories and industrial processing plants that follow. In conversations with the judges, in the varied social contacts with more than 400 fellow exhibitors from the United States and several foreign countries, you get a fresh look at the rewards of serious scientific endeavor. One evening you listen enthralled by the startling concept being explained by one of the “big men” in science. You’ve seen his name and picture in newspapers, textbooks, and technical journals, and there he stands, talking seriously to you and your fellow exhibitors. As he explains a problem that has puzzled you, you begin to see science as a community of kindred minds where every serious truth-seeker is welcome, where there is no rank other than that bestowed on active intellects, sound procedures, and reasoned, honest conclusions.