*Advice on the Project Board comes from Kim Scott's experiences at the 2006 Intel Science Talent Search. Nonetheless, the suggestions given here are relevent for most, if not all, research projects.

The project board was a source of much angst for me. First there were questions of size, then of programs to use, then of design and detail, and eventually of printing. Some general points:

> Small is fine! Don't feel obligated to fill the four feet by four feet that Intel gives you if you choose to have them provide a backboard.

> Look for advice on scientific poster-making online; many experienced, disgruntled poster session veterans have put their wisdom online. The three things they all agree on are that bigger is better for fonts (absolute minimum 18 pt), less is more for text, and white space is a Good Thing. Never be ashamed to have a poster that looks "empty."

> You're not going to offend anyone by making your poster too easy to understand, but you will turn people off your subject by seeming intimidating.

> Most of us agreed, by the end of the poster session, that just blowing up one or two figures would have been more effective than having the whole poster there. Practice giving your talk with a draft of your poster, and figure out which figures those are. Then make them twice as big and cut text to compensate. 1000 words is a good length for your poster.

> This applies to you, even though your topic really needs that extra discussion point because it's so complex! Like just about everyone else at STS, I decided that I really had to have the extra text, often justifying my notion that I was above the rules with the idea that math is different. That was a mistake. After all, the fact that "it's math" doesn't make the dearth of pretty pictures any less intimidating, the amount of text smaller, or the figures easier to understand!

> Be shameless about recruiting people to help critique your poster presentation. You don't need to have your presentation polished, but be comfortable talking to people about your project.

> Use bold and italic text sparingly to highlight key information. (Never underline.)

> Remember that roughly 8% of men (and some small percentage of women) are color-blind, so avoid combinations like red and green lines on a chart. For the rest of us, please avoid a red and green overall color scheme unless you're doing a project on the science of Santa.

> If possible, bring some 3-D prop that relates to your project, or devise some interactive way to get people interested in your project.

You're not going to be able to explain to the general public exactly what you did. If, however, you can explain the problem statement, your main conclusion, and a possible application, you're doing great. I'm not sure I even got through the problems statement with most people, because of the amount of background, but it's better to have one or two things come across clearly than everything come across cloudily.

>> Read on for more Technical Points on Project Boards for science research.