Explanation

About me

Hello, my name is Aaron and I am a Grade 7 (12 year old) student in Alberta, Canada. I love science and am also interested in the Internet for entertainment, communication and education.

I am entering our local science fair and wanted to do something that was not only potentially useful in science but also was made possible through the Internet. With some help from my Dad, I have come up with this experiment which is only possible because of the Internet, is very simple and I hope is fun to complete and is suitable for almost any age.

What am I trying to do?

This is an experiment to see if having certain eye colour, age, ethnicity or gender helps with distinguishing between colours of similar contrasts. For example, does having green eyes allow you to see light green on a green background more easily?

There are many tests in existence which can check the senses such as hearing frequencies, feeling temperatures, detecting odours. There are certainly many tests associated with eye sight including colour differentiation.

In my studies I have not come across a test which specifically checks for the ability to detect contrast, so my experiment is different in terms of what is being tested.

This experiment will gather data from each person that takes the test and I will generate graphs to see if there are any patterns that link the characteristics to the results.

So what is so special?

However it is not just what I am trying to test that makes my experiment unique, it is the way I am performing the test. Or more correctly the way YOU are performing the test.

I am using the power of the Internet to get as many people as possible to take the test from all over the world. I am encouraging people to send the link to their friends through social networks or email so that it spreads even further.

I am also making the test very simple and turning it into a game so that it doesn't seem like a boring experiment or scientific investigation. This should encourage even more people to try the test or to repeat the test with different settings.

My Dad has helped write the web code so that it should work on almost any modern device, including laptops, tablets and smartphones.

The real experiment is to see if the Internet can be valuable in performing such mass testing.

Is it safe?

I never require any personally identifying information from anyone who is taking the test. You may optionally provide a nick name to be displayed in the high score table but it doesn't have to be your real name.

I do record the IP Address of everyone who takes the test, but this information can not be used to identify you and is automatically provided to every page you visit on the Internet anyway. I will use the IP Address to get some indication of where people are accessing the test from and whether people are playing multiple times.

The test uses a combination of HTML, CSS and JavaScript, none of which can harm any computer or other device. There is nothing to be downloaded, no spyware, no advertisements and I am not collecting any information that I could use to contact you.

Thank you and have fun.