As you learned in the first two parts of this series on success, my first Independent Study Project (ISP) for my gifted program was on the Brain and Nervous System, and I was able to achieve success by mimicking a technique I had observed from older students. However, the following year in Grade 6, every other student started creating board games to achieve their synthesis objective. If I used the board game idea again, that aspect of my project would be no different from anyone else’s.

Mimicking Can Lead to Saturation

Essentially, what we saw from then on out for the next few years was a saturation of board games at the annual ISP show case. Instead of being something new and cool to check out, it became almost expected – in a way, it became almost standard to have one.

The problem with this type of saturation is that the value for going this route decreases. There is nothing special about a product that is being made everywhere and by everyone. In the same way, once everyone started churning out board games to achieve the synthesis objective, the impressiveness of a board game I produced would decrease relative to its value the year before – when I was the only student who made one in my class.

We can see this type of situation developing all the time. Take any great product that’s the first of its kind in the market. Demand will be super high and supply will be low because only one company is making it – as a result, the value of the product is high. Conversely, once competitors enter the market with similar products, the value of each of these products decreases because the supply has increased. Eventually, the market becomes saturated with similar products.

In Grade 6, I decided to do my project on Flying Machines – essentially looking at the development of aircrafts through history and how they functioned. But once I realized that the ISP showcase would be saturated with board games, I decided to completely avoid that route and look for a new cool idea.

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To better explain what I mean by this title, let’s go back to the story in Part 1 of this series. As I was saying, the Grade 5 gifted students were not expected to achieve the higher objectives in their projects, such as synthesis. In the end, I was one of a few students who were able to achieve the synthesis objective. For my project on the Brain and Nervous System, I decided to create an original board game where the players must learn about and better understand the nervous system in order to move ahead in the game – that is, I was communicating the information and ideas I learned in a new and original fashion.

Of course, this idea was no accident. It’s not like I was sitting around one day contemplating how to achieve the synthesis objective and the idea of a board game just popped into my head. I already knew the board game would be an acceptable idea for the synthesis objective – I had seen with my own eyes that it was.

Recall those previous two years where I went to my brother’s class’s ISP showcase. I had observed their projects and the ideas they used to complete their ISP objectives. For whatever reason, many of them chose to use board games to achieve their synthesis objectives. And while the board game idea was nothing to marvel at from an older student’s point of view, for my class that was new to the whole ISP thing, it was completely unheard of.

I was able to achieve a near perfect mark on my ISP because I was successful at completing more of the objectives than most of my peers. And I was able to do so because of my ability to observe how previous students were successful and implement those same solutions for my own problem. Not surprisingly, the other students in my gifted class caught on pretty quick, and almost everyone created a board game to achieve the synthesis objective in their ISP’s the following year.

Many Solutions Are Already Out There

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