
The 12 finalists of Marvel’s Iron Man 3: Inventor and Innovator Fair — all of them past participants in the Broadcom MASTERS® science fair competition – recently got some face time with the star behind the “Iron Man” mask.
The finalists looked “amazed” and “shocked” when Robert Downey Jr., the actor who plays billionaire inventor and all-around superhero Tony Stark in the wildly successful “Iron Man” franchise, appeared onstage with them during a special awards ceremony.
“I am very pleased to be introducing the future design team of the next Tony Stark Iron Man suit,” Downey said, according to a report in USA Today.
View more photos from the event on Facebook.
The finalists, whose nationally-recognized science projects include topics such as stem cells and gene mutations, are set to see their projects on display at the landmark El Capitan Theatre in Hollywood this month.
Grand Prize winners received their awards in a special ceremony onstage, hosted by Asa Kalama, a Walt Disney Imagineer. Cassie Drury, an eighth-grade MASTERS finalist from Louisville, KY, was awarded one of the grand prizes for her project, “Exploring Cell Signaling in Wound Healing.”
The Iron Man 3: Inventor and Innovator Fair is a nationwide science competition held in conjunction with the release of “Iron Man 3”, sponsored by Discovery Science Center, Broadcom Foundation and Marvel Studios.

Prior to their Hollywood adventures, the students took a tour of Broadcom’s headquarters in Orange County, where they met engineers and spent some hands-on time with the latest Broadcom-powered consumer tech gadgets. From there, they spent some time behind-the-scenes at Disney Studios, had a meeting with Disney Imagineers and took trips to Disneyland and the Discovery Science Center.
Related:
- “Iron Man 3” Contest Finalists Get Hands-On with the Technologies that Connect everything®
- STEM Scholars Share Science Projects at the White House, Broadcom MASTERS Represent
- Broadcom MASTERS Students Champion Science and Engineering in Sacramento
- STEM Students Meet With Lawmakers for National Engineers Week
- Rising Star Raymond Gilmartin Wins MASTERS® Top Prize