In the 6th grade I had a science project due, I of course had done nothing until the day before so I made up weeks of data in the form of journal entries from which bar and line charts were created since I was good with computers back when having pictures off the internet was considered fancy. My aim was just a passing grade and not being found out.
Lo an behold do I not only get put into the school's science fair, I actually end up winning second place. This is actually how I became the science kid from then on and to live up to this name I went and invested more time into both math and science classes from then on. Eventually I went from an okay student to a top student and becoming a real scientist was something I always wished I had done.
Moral of the story?, there isn't one... I just never realized just how much 'real' science I was doing back then.