by Michelle Cassidy

Photo: Kevin Lamarque/Reuters

President Obama hosted a group of young students yesterday at the second White House Science Fair, where they showed off some inspired projects, according to InTheCapital. The innovations being featured at the event would have blown my entire grade school science fair out the water. Projects ranged from a device that removes ink from paper to a sugar packet that dissolves in hot water (eliminating a significant amount of waste) to alternative energy sources for cars.

More than 100 students from different science competitions nationwide attended the event and presented their award-winning projects. Obama urged students to pursue higher education in science, math and especially engineering:

We need more people, who can do math, design software, and create new applications for machines that have yet to come into existence. If we choose not to engage in fundamental research—not to pursue new technologies and systems, not to discover new properties of numbers and atomic structures,not to explore the oceans and outer space—we leave that work to others, to emerging countries, who have seen from the outside what science and technology can do for a society.

Other notable guests at the fair included Bill Nye the Science Guy (remember him?) and Jamie Hyneman and Adam Savage of Mythbusters fame.

Our favorite part? The pictures of Obama firing the marshmallow cannon designed by Joey Hudy of Phoenix, Arizona across the State Dining Room. The Washington Post has a gallery featuring more pictures from the event, and the White House blog has a video showing some more of the projects.

Update 12:04 p.m.: We have video!