Science fair season is here! It’s a time when you can get creative, delve into a project you’re passionate about, and test your nerves while you talk to the judges. Here are some tips to help you be not just prepared — but ready to knock it out of the park.

When he was a high school student in Yakima, Wash., Christopher Payne knew exactly what he wanted to do for a living. His father, an electrical engineer, was an avid reader of architectural magazines, and seeing them around the house piqued Payne’s interest. “I would take the floor plans in the magazines and trace them to make my own grand house,” he recalls. “I wanted to be an architect.”

As a 12th-grader at Menlo-Atherton High School in Northern California, Anna Quinlan is a little preoccupied. What senior isn’t? But here’s the thing: It’s all about science — heady stuff like helping people manage Type 1 and 2 diabetes through her very own invention, a low-cost, closed-loop insulin pump. She calls it an “artificial pancreas,” a breakthrough that won her the Grand Award in the 2018 National American Indian Virtual Science and Engineering Fair (NAIVSEF) sponsored by AISES.

Learning how to smoothly transition from learning in a classroom to navigating a workplace can be tricky. At her internship with Boston Scientific, University of Oklahoma student Alexis Keeling learned how to be a working engineer. Besides picking up a lot of company-specific procedures and tools, she was able to see how what she has learned in school applies to real-life manufacturing. Keeling, Cherokee, says that as an intern you are expected to do true project work that applies to your education, as well as learn how a company functions, outside a textbook.

When Onen Rhoades wants something, he isn’t afraid to work hard for it. For years he had been interested in building computers but lacked the resources. Still, Rhoades didn’t let that stop him. Once he was old enough to get a job, he began saving money to buy components. By the time he was 16, he had earned enough to build his first computer. “It started when I wanted a gaming computer,” he recalls. “Since there weren’t any classes on it, I went about teaching myself how to build a computer, and I eventually became really good at it.”

Chad Lovett is happy to be back home in Fort Worth. Texas wasn’t exactly home to begin with, but it’s where, as a young adult, he began coming into his own. That was more than 20 years ago, but the recollections are still vivid. “You don’t necessarily know it at the time,” he explains, “but some of those early calls you make can really set you on your path.”