Yes, I'm in the American Southwest...

Yesterday, I had ice cream with some of the MIT Class of 2009 folks who are here for ISEF:

From left to right: Nick, Peak, Jijun, Johann, Mike, Donald, Amber, Kenny (MIT '11?), Ilang (Wellesley '09)

In case you're wondering, here are some of their project titles:

• Use of Homology Modeling and Molecular Docking to Map retinoid Binding Sites on Protein Kinase C
• A Practical Implementation of Gradient-Based Convolutional Neural Networks in Handwriting Recognition
• HiBridge: Bridging Multiple Hierarchies Through Structured XML Messages
• Factors Affecting Cooperative Robotic Behavior
• Novel genetic Analysis of Disease Susceptibility and Hereditary Patterns Using a Multi-Population Data Set
• Near-Infrared Albedo and Flux Variation of Saturn's Rings at 2.00 Microns: 1995-2003
• Digitally-Enhanced Thin-Layer Chromatography: An Inexpensive, New Technique for Qualitative and Quantitative Analysis

Today, I get to browse some of the 1100+ projects, followed by the big lunch reception in the afternoon. Should be fun!