WHRHS Students Tackle Real World Problems with Winning Science Fair Projects

Diana Liao, a 10th-grade student at Watchung Hills Regional High School, won five awards at last week's North Jersey Regional Science Fair, including selection as an alternate for the International Science and Engineering Fair, in Los Angeles, this May.

The NJRSF, which accepts entries from 10 counties in New Jersey in all areas of science, math, and engineering, is the only way students can be considered for entry into the ISEF, said Watchung Hills science teacher Sophia Gershman. Liao was the only individual chosen and Marco Armenante, Peter Flint and Geoffrey Tanner were the only team selected from Watchung Hills as alternates for the ISEF, which last year hosted 1,600 students from 52 countries.

 "It's an honor," said Dr. Gershman. "It's exceptional."

Watchung Hills had a total of 24 students submit 12 projects to the NJRSF, which received 166 projects last weekend at Rutgers University in New Brunswick, and the school took 14 awards. All the Watchung Hills students competing were: Marco Armenante, Monique Baumont, Justin Bokhari, Carly Borinsky, Kevin Chin, Peter Flint, Liza George, Priyanka Goyal, Himani Gupta, Akash Katakam, Diana Liao, Jasmin Lo, Brittany MacTaggart, Devanshi Mehta, Christopher O’Meara, Shreyas Panchagnula, Manas Rajaram, Delia Shen, Geoffrey Tanner, Isha Vasudeva, Kevin Wu, Michael Wu, Annie Yang and Wesley Yiin.

Dr. Gershman said students started formulating concepts last spring and began work on their projects last fall, spending a lot of time preparing for the competition, in addition to their regular school work and other activities.

"It's just an incredible amount of work," Dr. Gershman said. "Being teenagers they are master jugglers. They have a great time just sharing their work and sharing other people's projects."

For her project, Liao wrote her own code and altered existing code to program a simulation of fire for a video game. In the video game, the fire would act the way it would in real life and react to various situations within the game, said Dr. Gershman. If wood was burning in the game or if someone struck a match, the fire would burn the same way it would in the real world, she said.

The team project from Armenante, Flint and Tanner was the construction of a plasma pen. Under normal atmospheric pressure, plasma could get hot enough to burn living tissue. The students created the pen so that when it produced plasma, it did not get hot or create a significant electrical current, which would make it safe for use in medical treatments. 

The students' projects put them in league with advanced research being undertaken at research universities, with some focusing on projects aimed at furthering medical research. Akash Katakam and Kevin Chin are researching ways to prevent microbes from forming bio-films, which block antibiotics and can help lead to infections; Isha Vasudeva and Priyanka Goyal are trying to find the keys to open cell absorbtion that could lead to simplified ways of detecting cancers.

 All the Watchung Hills students who won awards are as follows:

Diana Liao:

• ISEF Individual Trip Alternate
• NJRSF Second Place in Mathematics and Computers
• Intel Excellence in Computer Science
• National Oceanographic Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Award
• Scientific American Award, Rutgers Student Award

Marco Armenante, Peter Flint, Geoffrey Tanner:

• ISEF Team Trip Alternate
• NJRSF Second Place in Engineering

•  Army Achievement Award, Second Place
  

Akash Katakam and Kevin Chin: NJRSF First Place in Biochemistry

Shreyas Panchagnula and Devanshi Mehta: NJRSF Second Place in Physics and Astronomy

Liza George, Michael Wu and Annie Yang: NJRSF Second Place in Physics and Materials

Carly Borinsky: NJRSF Honorable Mention in Microbiology

Jasmin Lo, Manas Rajaram and Wesley Yiin: Army Achievement Award in Engineering

Isha Vasudeva and Priyanka Goyal: NJIT Science Fair Academic Fellowship