The seventh annual Citywide Science Fair, held Jan. 12 inside the Oakwood School gymnasium, brought about many first-time victors, participants and coveted ribbon winners.
Sixth grader Ayana Wilmot, 11, became Oakwood’s first middle school blue ribbon winner in the Engineering category with her “LED Gloves” invention that she designed to allow hearing-impaired people communicate in the dark. The stylish black gloves had LED lights on the joints so that sign language signals could be viewed in dark areas.
“My grandma is partially hearing impaired,” said Wilmot of her inspiration for the science fair. “I’m very excited (to take home the blue ribbon) because this is my first year competing and I worked very hard on my project.”
This year, there were 124 middle school and high school entrants that competed for first, second and third place ribbons at the science fair, which is sponsored by the Morgan Hill Chamber of Commerce. Competitors were from Oakwood School, Britton Middle School, Martin Murphy Middle School and Jackson Academy of Math & Music.
“I feel it’s important to ignite the passion of science in our children while they are young, and the science fair is the perfect way to do that,” said Marilyn Librers, who co-chairs the science fair committee along with chamber Executive Director John Horner.
A 16-member judging panel reviewed each and every project and selected the top three in categories such as engineering, botany, behavioral science, chemistry and biology.
“This is real world work,” said Morgan Hill Unified’s board president Donna Ruebusch as she addressed the hundreds of students, staff and families in attendance. “Students have had success or possibly failure, but that’s part of learning….You can turn things upside-down and take new answers from your experimenting.”
Oakwood junior Renee Gastelum placed first in the chemistry field with her experiment titled “The effect of temperature on water in the Leidenfrost Effect.” For her experiment, she dropped water in varied temperatures onto a hot surface and clocked how long it took for the water drop to evaporate. She used hot, cold and room temperature water droplets.
“It’s exciting to see how much I improved over last year in science,” said Gastelum, who returned to the citywide competition after not taking home a ribbon in her sophomore year.
Britton eighth graders Jason Chung, 14, and David Samatua, 13, teamed up to take first place in the chemistry division with their project, “Greasy Gas,” that used vegetable oil and deep fried oil to make biodiesel.
“We saw how there is a lot of pollution in the world and wanted to find another way to make biodiesel,” explained Samatua of how they came up with the idea.
It took the blue-ribbon duo two months to figure out just the right mixture to create the biodiesel. This was their first venture into the city competition.
“There were difficulties trying to get the right amount, the right chemicals and the right solution but we were able to get it done and make biodiesel,” Chung added.
Oakwood seventh grader Danya Balagopal topped the middle school biological science field with her experiment, “Recycling Food Waste to Sequester Carbon, Improve Soil Maturation and Growth of Plants in Urban Areas.”
“I took used food waste, baked it to 400 degrees Celcius for eight hours, powdered it and added sandy soil at a 1 to 1 ratio,” detailed Balagopal, who watered radish seeds in the soil over three weeks finding positive results. “This is my first science fair so it was surprising (to win).”
Fellow Oakwood seventh grader Michael Lutz, 12, claimed a second-place red ribbon with his experiment, “Harvesting Electricity from Heat. He made a thermoelectric generator, using a peltier module, and was able to charge cell phones with his invention.
“It is especially useful in developing countries where they have cell phones but no electricity readily available. They may have to walk miles to find a place to charge up their phones,” Lutz said. “I liked testing and thinking about ways to improve my project.”
A total of $500 in scholarship money was split between the six place-winners and gift cards were awarded to the runner-ups. All participants that received ribbons will be honored at an awards banquet at a later date yet to be determined.
Physics and Engineering
High School: 1st, Ashin Viswesvaran; 2nd, Andrew Lyle; 3rd, Ethan Ngo
Middle School: 1st, Ayana Wilmot; 2nd, Michael Lutz; 3rd, Molly Waddington
Behavioral Science
High School: 1st, Lidia Buschini; 2nd, Grace Chapman; 3rd, Georgia Braun-Rudin
Middle School: 1st, Sela Howe; 2nd, Serenity Cheshire; 3rd, Soraya Reyes and Brooke Bevington
Chemistry
High School: 1st, Renee Gastelum; 2nd, Jacob Mortensen; 3rd, Hannah Selby
Middle School: 1st, Jason Chung and David Samatua; 2nd, Evan Coakley; 3rd, Eric Le and Paige Pagaduan
Biological Science
High School: 1st, Sameer Varma; 2nd, Raveena Panihar; 3rd, Callie Monaco
Middle School: 1st, Danya Balagopal; 2nd, Grace Sullivan and Courtney Wohlgemuth; 3rd, Hailey and Ashley Freeman
