Seven research students from ORHS competed in the 66th Annual Southern Appalachian Science and Engineering Fair hosted at the University of Tennessee. The competition was held March 27-30 with the awards ceremony on Thursday evening. There were 55 Senior Division projects in competition.
Five of the students were part Math, Science, and Computer Science Thesis course at ORHS, advised by Tammy Carneim and Jessica Williams. The remaining two did their research independently with the help of teachers Deni Sobek and Sharon Thomas.
Ryan Armstrong earned second place for his project titled āQuantifying the Evolution of Gas from Li-ion Battery Materialsā under the mentorship of Dr. Gabriel Veith, at Oak Ridge National Lab. Along with a $750 scholarship and trophy, Ryan will travel to Los Angeles, California in May to compete at the International Science and Engineering Fair.
Jasleen Narula earned fourth place and $100 for her project titled āRapid High-Throughput Toxicity Screening of East Tennessee Water Samples Using Autobioluminescent Yeast Assayā under the mentorship of Steven Ripp. Ā .
Wilson Huang earned fifth place and $75 for his project titled āDesigning Acoustically-Driven Microrobots to Simulate Active Matterā under the mentorship of Dr. Bradley Lokitz and Dr. Nickolay Lavrik from the Center for Nanophase Materials at Oak Ridge National Laboratory.
Dylan Payne, mentored by Richard Archibald, Lara Blokland and Michael Ma, mentored by Dr. Laura Pullum, and Tyr Hondorf, mentored by Vig Sherrill, also competed and won various special awards for their projects. Logan Rumbaugh also competed. In total, the students earned $1400 in prizes for placement and special awards.
Jefferson Middle School students, Kayla King, Alexandra Shanafield and Amelia Thomson also participated in the SASEF on Tuesday. Their mentors are John Beard and Jim Franklin.
Amelia Thomson earned 3rd Place Junior Division, Certificate of excellence from SASEF, and a nomination to compete in the 2017 Broadcom Masters. Alex Shanafield received Honorable Mention, with an award from the Society of Women Engineers.
