Information about the slide show DVD

Science fair coordinators -- I just wanted to highlight a few important details about the slide show DVD that Our Science Fair produces for your science fair:

1.  We need at least 60 photos uploaded from parents in order to produce the slide show for you.  If we don't get at least 60 photos by the deadline, we won't produce the slide show.  Parents often need to be reminded to upload their photos, so feel free to use our new Send Email feature on your Participants page to send out a reminder to them.

2.  The deadline for uploading photos is 4 days before your science fair.  Only photos that are submitted before the deadline will be included in the slide show.  This is so that we can mail the DVD to you, and you can receive it before your science fair.  The idea is that you can have the slide show running during your science fair as a fun little activity for your visitors.

3.  Our Science Fair may email parents after your science fair is over, offering them a chance to purchase a copy of the slide show DVD.  As the science fair coordinator, you can set the price of the DVD, similar to the way you set the price of display boards and header boards.  Your school keeps the difference between the base cost and the price you set.  Only PayPal payments will be accepted for slide show DVD orders, so you won't have to deal with checks coming in.  You will need to distribute the DVDs to the students when they arrive.

4.  If you are uncomfortable with any aspect of this feature, you can disable it by preventing parents from uploading their photos.  You can do this from your Customize Photo Upload Page page.

That's it for now ... as always, let us know if you have any questions.  We hope your planning is going smoothly ... there are a lot of science fairs coming up in March and April, so it's a busy time for everyone!

--Rajeev

New feature: Set your ordering deadline

Science fair coordinators,

You can now set the ordering deadline for your website separately from your registration deadline.  (Previously, you could only set the registration deadline which affected both the ability to register for the fair as well as order supplies.)  The ordering deadline can be set from the Basic Settings page of your website, once you are logged in as the coordinator.  Once the ordering deadline has passed, your students/parents will no longer be able to order supplies, although you still can if you are logged in as the coordinator.

We strongly recommend that you set your ordering deadline to be approximately 5 weeks before your science fair.  This way, we can ship those orders out to you the day after the deadline, and your students will still have plenty of time to put together their project display board.  (Keep in mind that orders take up to 8 business days to arrive, depending on where you are located.)

A word about our shipping policy and shipping charges.  We are happy to be able to ship to you an unlimited number of full boxes free of charge.  A full box consists of 30 display boards or an equivalent mix of display boards and header boards (e.g., 25 display boards + 20 header boards).  We will also ship to you one partially full box free of charge the day after your ordering deadline.  A partially full box is anything less than 30 display boards (or equivalent).  If you need to request any additional shipments that consist of partially full boxes, you will be charged for the cost of shipping.  Try to avoid this, as shipping for these large boxes can be quite costly.

If you are using Our Science Fair to manage your science fair this year, I would also strongly recommend that you take 10 minutes to read through our brief documentation on ordering, payment, billing, and shipping.  It will probably answer a lot of questions, and avoid any unpleasant surprises.  You can access the documentation by logging in as the coordinator, and clicking on Documentation near the bottom of the left menu bar.

Thanks, and email me at rajeev@oursciencefair.com if you have any questions or concerns.

--Rajeev

A superbly designed web service -- WackyButtons.com

Yesterday I blogged about my designs for our science fair buttons, and how we get our buttons made from WackyButtons.com.  I discovered Wacky Buttons via a Google search last year, and am quite impressed with their service and product.  I don't know anybody who works there, and I have no affiliation with them.  I don't know if it's one person sitting at home in front of a button press making buttons one at a time, or whether it's a large operation with a factory full of people and machines.  (I suspect something in between.)  I just think they've taken a simple concept and executed on it really nicely.  I wish more businesses would strive to have the kind of attention to detail that they do.  Here's what I value about their website, service, and product:

• Cute logo.
• Buttons is all they do.  Their website isn't crammed with a hundred different products, making it hard for me to find what I want.  The whole site is about buttons, and if buttons are what I'm looking for at this particular moment, then I can stayed focused on my goal.
• Price calculator.  Before I'm even close to being ready to place my order or knowing what design I want, I can easily calculate exactly what my total cost would be, including shipping.  I can play with different quantities and button sizes to figure out what will work best.  And they do all this without asking for any personal information, other than my zipcode for the shipping calculation.  I love that.
• Custom designs.  Submitting my own custom button design is incredibly easy.  I don't have to get on the phone with someone and have them explain to me how to do it.  All the information is right there on the site, including templates and file formats and everything.  When my design is ready, I just upload the artwork.  In less than a day, I get an email back saying my design is approved, at which point I can order my buttons.
• Fast turnaround time.  To give you an idea ...  for the science fair, I uploaded my custom design Monday at 10pm.  It was approved Tuesday at 6am.  I placed my order Tuesday at 9am.  On Wednesday (today) at 8am, my order was being processed, and at 12:06pm, it was done.  They shipped it out, and gave me a tracking number.  I expect to receive my buttons early next week.  Simply incredible.  That's one week from start to finish, and the only reason it took even that long is because I'm on the west coast.
• Simple pricing. Not only are their prices very good, they are also very simple.  They don't complicate things by tacking on fees for custom designs, fees for low quantity orders, having different pricing depending on the colors used, or anything like that.  If you know the quantity and the button size, you can easily figure out the price by looking it up in a table or using the price calculator.
• Realistic preview.  I love this feature.  When my custom design gets approved, they actually show me a realistic image of what my button will look like using my custom design.  How they do this, I have no clue.  For example, I uploaded the following image:

When it was approved, and I was ready to order, they showed me this preview, before they had manufactured a single button:

It looks like a real button!  How cool is that!

I love that these guys are so passionate about buttons that they've put in a great deal of effort into making the web-based button buying process smooth, painless, and fun.  Thanks Wacky Buttons!  You guys rock.

--Rajeev

Designs for science fair buttons

I've always been envious of graphic designers; their talents seem out-of-reach to me.  I have many skills of which I'm proud, but art and graphic design are not among them.  Is it just one of those left-brain-right-brain things, and my brain is not wired for art?  Or is it just that I haven't devoted sufficient time and effort to practice the skill?  I'm not sure, but I am hoping it's something I can get better at with time.  One nice thing about being the volunteer coordinator for the school science fair is that it gives me a chance to practice and improve my design skills in a low-risk environment.  (Low-risk because I doubt anyone would dare complain if my artwork wasn't up to their standards!)

At Cascade Ridge Elementary we give out buttons for all science fair participants, volunteers, and teachers to wear on the day of the science fair.  And rather than just buying a bunch of generic science fair buttons, I thought it would be more fun to get custom buttons made with our school's name and my own design.  For example, last year (2009), I created the following design for our buttons:

If you recognize the telescope, that's because I stole it from the clipart library in Microsoft Word.  Now, you might think that since I'm using pre-drawn clipart, there isn't much left to actually design.  But remember, this stuff doesn't come naturally to me.  So I agonized for hours over the background color, the font, the font color, the text, and the placement of the text.  Even the process of getting the design from my head into Photoshop Elements was a challenge, mostly because I find Photoshop to be complicated and confusing.  But in the end, I was pleased with the result.

For this year's science fair (2010), our logo is a magnet, and I couldn't find the exact right clipart or stock illustration for what I had in mind.  So I actually drew the magnet myself using a vector graphics tool called Microsoft Expression Design, which I find to be intuitive and easy to use.  My final button design looks like this:

It's not a masterpiece, but I kind of like its simplicity, and I hope the kids will like it too.  I just noticed that I've used a black background two years in a row ... there's something about black that makes it look classy to me.  I ordered our buttons today, so we'll see what they look like in about week when they arrive.

I buy our buttons from a company called WackyButtons.com, which is a simply outstanding service.  Stay tuned for a future blog post where I list all the things I love about them.

Leave me a comment on this blog if you have any thoughts or feedback.  And don't forget to get your own science fair website for your school at oursciencefair.com.

--Rajeev

New feature: Teachers can access participant data

January was a busy month over here, while we worked hard to deliver the features that you need for your science fairs.  Today we're excited to announce a new feature called "Teacher Access".

The teachers and staff at your school may need to see the list of students who are registered for the science fair. In particular, they may wish to know which students from their own classes are signed up. However, as the coordinator, you probably do not want to share your coordinator password with them, because then they they would be granted full administrative access to your account.

Now Our Science Fair includes a feature that allows you to give teachers the ability to view the list of participants without giving them the ability to make any changes to the data. To enable this, visit your Account management page, and assign a separate "Teacher password" of your choosing:

If the teacher password is blank, then teachers will not be able to access the data. If you do assign a teacher password, then you will need to somehow inform the teachers of the password. They will need to enter this password in order to be able to access the data. Make sure that the password is not shared beyond the trusted teachers and staff at your school.

Instruct your teachers to visit your science fair website, and click on the "Teachers" link in the upper-right corner:

They will be taken to a page where they will need to enter the teacher password:

Once they enter the correct password, they will be able to view the list of registered participants for the entire school. They can sort the columns, or filter the records by grade level or teacher. They can also download the data to a spreadsheet if they need to save it or manipulate it further.

If you decide to use this feature, let us know what you think ... we'd love to get your feedback!
 
--Rajeev

New feature: Option to disable parent/student photo upload

You can now choose to disable the photo upload functionality for your Our Science Fair site.  Some schools have requested this because they are concerned about violating their district's policy regarding the use of student photos. 

If you would like to disable the photo upload feature, log in to your coordinator pages, and under Site customization, go to Photo upload page.  Near the top of the page, uncheck the checkbox labeled Enable photo upload:

and then press Save.

Disabling this feature will not actually remove the Upload Photos menu item or page from your site.  However, anyone who visits that page will be presented with a brief message indicating that the feature is not supported.  In addition, you will need to make sure to remove any text from other parts of your site that refer to uploading photos, so that your visitors aren't confused by a mixed message.

I also want to take this opportunity to reassure all coordinators that choose to leave the photo upload feature enabled.  The photos uploaded by parents/students will only ever be made available to you, the science fair coordinator.  We do not ever make them publicly available, and we do not share them with anyone except you.  Currently, the only way you can get access to the photos is from the DVD that we will send you a few days before your science fair.  We are working on a way for coordinators to access the photos online, but that is not possible today.

--Rajeev

New feature: Customize the instructions for sending in check

Just a minor new feature announcement today.  You can customize the text that instructs parents on how to write the check and submit it.  Parents see this text when they order supplies and choose to pay by check.  The default text simply says, "Please write a check and send it in with your student to school."  However, some schools would like to have more specific instructions for the parents, such as taking the check to the office, giving it to the student's teacher, or placing it in a special envelope or box dedicated for the PTA.

To customize this text, log in to your coordinator pages, and under Site customization, choose Ordering page.  About three-quarters of the way down the page, you should see this:

Change the text to suit your situation, and press Save.

--Rajeev