How to enter

Entries open Tuesday 26th March 2024 and close Wednesday 13th November 2024 at 11:59:59 pm in the time zone from where you are uploading your project. The eligibility of late entries will be decided by the AUSSEF Scientific Review Committee, via an appeal process. Please submit projects well before the deadline so internet issues don’t hamper your ability to upload files.

You must be in Year 9-12 to enter and team projects (maximum 3 members) are eligible. As AUSSEF is a National Fair, you should have been a prize-winner in a state or national STEM-based competition, gold or silver CSIRO Crest Award recipient or have a project that your school has adjudged as being of a similar high standard. Experimentation or construction must have started on or after 1st January 2024.

Before submitting your project material, you need to ensure that you have carefully read and followed the rules, which are based on the ISEF International Rules and Guidelines. To ensure the integrity of the national judging process, please make sure you have made every effort to remove your name, other people’s name, the name of your school and explicit mention of your state from all documentation. Even your file names need to include no identifiers.

When entering your project online, you will be asked which category and subcategory best describes your project. With 22 categories, each with five to nine subcategories, deciding which category and subcategory best suits your project will be quite challenging. It will be best to sort this out well in advance of entering your project. If you wish to ask advice on this matter then email the AUSSEF Committee on [email protected] and they will help you. Also, if a Stage 1 judge believes a project has been entered in the wrong category, he/she will inform their senior assessor and they will discuss the best category and subcategory with the other senior assessors and reallocate that project to that discussed choice.

An Adult Sponsor who can be a parent, a teacher, a mentor or anyone else who has had close contact with your project throughout its duration, must sign the final declaration of your online entry form to verify that you have performed the work.

All files must be converted to PDFs before uploading and you must upload a report or a portfolio. This year, a logbook or journal is mandatory – you will not be able to enter without one. The judges really want to see the developmental stages of your project, so they recommend that you include photos or links to short recorded videos that show the progress of your project. You can also upload any file that you think will support your submission, such as spreadsheets of your original data. Videos are recommended for Engineering and Technology projects showing how your app or prototype works. Links to Google Drives or Google Docs are not permitted.