What do Deflategate, a sailing simulator and a bubblegum study have in common? They were all exhibits at Sippican School’s science fair.

The school's multipurpose room was packed on Friday afternoon with students proudly showing off their inventions and experiments to a group of judges.

One of the winners was third-grader Tapper Crete, who won second place in the third/fourth grade category. Crete created a sailing simulator, something he was inspired to do as a member of the sailing club at Beverly Yacht Club.

“I see lots of little kids who are scared to get in the water because of the waves and the wind,” he said. “I’ve been thinking about this idea for years.”

Crete said he and his dad got a large toy boat and built “basically a giant lazy susan” to help simulate the feeling of being on the water. The exhibit was complete with a fan to blow wind into the sail to help kids learn the basics of sailing before actually having to get on the water.

“I’m going to donate it to the yacht club,” Crete said.

Another student, Topher Huffman, set out to prove Tom Brady’s innocence with his own Deflategate study. His goal was to prove that the air pressure of a football would naturally decrease in colder temperatures, without any tampering from Brady & Co.

Huffman took the air pressure of the football at room temperature, and then put it in the freezer and continued to measure the pressure every 15 minutes. Then, to be thorough, he also slowly heated the football up in an oven to test how heat affected the pressure.

Ultimately, Huffman found what most Patriots fans already thought to be true: Brady is innocent and the pressure in the ball dropped when exposed to cold temperatures.

Students Bryn Feeney and Kate Feeney teamed up to do a little research about what made some bubblegum more conducive to blowing big bubbles than others. The students went into the study thinking that Bubble Yum gum would let them blow the biggest bubbles because it has the most amount of sugar.

“Sugar allows the gum to expand,” Kate said.

However, while they were correct, another gum with no sugar tied with Bubble Yum for the biggest bubble. Kate and Bryn explained that after doing some research on the ingredients, they found that the other type of gum had xylitol in it, which acted like a sugar.

Throughout the assortment of projects two things were clear – the students had fun and they learned a lot.