<p>I didn’t do it either, but you asked for advice so I’d thought I’d offer it.</p>
<p>First thing is to just start doing research. All you have to do is email a professor at a university that’s reasonably close and say you are interested in doing research. Try to get on your own project or a small part of the project. (Don’t worry. You don’t have to formulate a research project on your own. If you do later on, then that will help you at intel but it’s still pretty rare.) In the first couple of months you will probably be assigned to a grad student to teach you the techniques and how to do research in general.</p>
<p>The goal for the first few months is to become proficient in the techniques and then learn how to reason in the field. I’d say you need at least summer’s worth of research in order to possibly have something to submit.</p>
<p>In the beginning, though, don’t worry about intel specifically. </p>
<p>You might mention that you would like to develop your own project for the intel competition just so your prof doesn’t have you just helping out or doing one technique over and over.</p>