Young Scientist (Book Series)

Young Scientist is a book series that was part of The School Days. The show ran in 2011 until around mid-2011 when one of the characters were reported to take over an intermediate primary school class. The series was then on hiatus until November 2011 when it was reported that Sam is unable to complete the series due to a change of school which Sam's Seven Department then axed the Young Scientist segment before Season 8. The Young Scientist segment then remained discontinued for an additional 8 years, despite a potential revival announced in 2016 if he could afford the books and collect them at the nearest Woolworths available to him which ultimately failed.

Sam Wilkes Jr. then tried one last chance to bring back Young Scientist and after the books were shipped to Woodridge in November, he announced that the Young Scientist book series will return in 2019.

   The series was revived on 20 April 2019, coinciding with the 10th Anniversary of The School Days back when the show initially launched back on 20 April 2009. However, in contrast to its past, the show will be independently spun-off rather than a segment on The School Days. This is due to licensing issues as Sam's Seven no longer exists as the channel was rebranded 4 years after the book series ended. However in September 2021, the licensing issues had concluded as the 10-year license deal expired and Austin Network then said they owned the name to the series. Unfortunately, the independent spinoff had long concluded by then.

Sam's Seven were bought out by Sam Wilkes Radio Network and renamed to Sam Wilkes Radio TV (then to Neon, Neon 7 and finally Neon Entertainment). Because of this, this show will not be listed as a segment on The School Days and will instead be listed as an independent show. This show will be broadcast weekly on Neon Entertainment. Sam Wilkes Jr. later flicked back and said that the series will be monthly instead of weekly.

In addition, the original cast & crew are not returning to work on the production of the new Young Scientist book series because of their new careers. Austin, the original host of the segment has also decided not to return for the revival which leaves Sam Wilkes Jr. as the new host of the show. "I wish Sam Wilkes Jr. all the best for his shot at hosting this series like I did for the Young Scientist segment I had 8 years ago on The School Days. I won't be part of this revival but I wish him all the best with it and hope to attract a newer generation of children to be part of Science from the 90s" Austin had said. Austin had also clarified that although he was still alive at the time, he was in ill health and that would have prevented him from coming on to the show anyways.

It was reported that a small portion of the team that had worked on the series in late 2011 after the show reached its peak had returned with some of the newcomers.

Although successful, only the first episode was uploaded. Sam Wilkes Jr. had announced that episode 2 "would take forever to upload, if at all" explaining that archive.org switched to the upload speed of dial-up since it would only upload 16kb/s at most. Sam Wilkes Jr. has tried to seek out other websites but with all other websites were either difficult to create an account (in the case of Veoh), upload limits (in video size and/or video length) or is a pay service. He cannot upload his book series on YouTube because of their strict policies. In addition, he knows nothing about computer coding, which is why Freetube alternatives are also out of the question. Sam Wilkes Jr. had not announced any future plans for the book series and further episodes have not been recorded until the issue had been resolved. He can test Google Drive but cannot find any other alternatives especially since the episodes are absolutely massive sizes (average size of 1-1.5GB). Eventually, the series ended after Sam Wilkes Jr. had exhausted all other options with Neon Entertainment. There is only one episode known to exist.

Austin Network later announced they were the owners of the Young Scientist book series after acquiring the Sam Wilkes Radio Network assets in 2020. Austin Network is pending a decision on handing over the Young Scientist intellectual property over to its rival AustinAspen Network as Austin Network is NOT planning to keep the name surviving on its branch any longer.

As of 2021, Sam Wilkes Sr. is in possession of the entire 20 book set. He has Books 1 - 10 and 16 - 20. It was unknown if he has the remaining five but after searching for the missing five in the shed in February 2022, he saved them and brought them in with the other books. He also brought in a 6 decades of Holden vs. Ford book along with the Young Scientist books, which means he has the entire book set including the aforementioned special book spanning 6 decades of Holden vs. Ford.

In 2022, Wilkes Sr. brought the series back as a 19 episode version as part of a subscriber-only program.

He had expressed interest in hosting the series in 2024 as part of the 15th anniversary celebration for The School Days. He has entered in to talks with AustinAspen Network and the network have been attempting to claim the rights to broadcast the rebooted series. He also decided that the original crew should return just to work on the 2024 reboot but they all have rejected the offer, stating that they are busy with their own careers or have retired (the vast majority of them were in their late 40s/early 50s when they worked on the 2011 segment). The 2019 revival crew also turned down the offer (most of them were in their 60s and nearing retirement in 2019).