If this is a month or two long research project, forget about "making the most of it" or being successful. It's just not enough time. Your goal here is to make a good impression on your mentor/whoever supervises you so that when the time comes for that letter of rec, you can get a decent one. You can do this by showing up on time and making as few mistakes as possible by taking notes. If you insist on being a gunner about it though, do all the look-good-on-paper stuff, like poster presentation, going to conferences, or ultimately getting your name on a paper (probably third author or so at best). The latter might require you to have a frank one-on-one conversation with the advising prof. to let him/her know you want a paper at the end so that the prof can assign you to an appropriate project.