SPA students win awards at 2022 Twin Cities Regional Science Fair, move on to state, national, international competitions

SPA student-scientists have once again earned multiple national, state, and local honors at the Twin Cities Regional Science Fair (TCRSF) for their original research in science, computer science, and engineering. Fourteen students competed in this year's TCRSF, which was held virtually throughout the month of February.

For the fifth year in a row, SPA students competing at TCRSF were named Finalists in the Regeneron ISEF competition, the world’s largest international pre-college science competition. The team of seniors Alex Moore and Ruth Mellin will present their project, entitled One-way ASL translation: 3D printed robotic hand with integrated speech recognition, during ISEF's finalist competition in early May; Alex and Ruth created a smartphone app which allows the user to speak a short phrase that then uses ASL fingerspelling to recreate the spoken words with a 3D-printed robotic hand. Alex and Ruth were awarded one of two ISEF Finalist spots for Minnesota; senior Will Sedo and junior Linnea Colley were also tapped as first and second alternates, respectively. 

In addition, nine SPA student projects will move on to the Minnesota State Science and Engineering Fair (for poster projects) and nine will move on to the next phase of the Minnesota Junior Science and Humanities Symposium (for research papers). A total of 11 sponsored awards for excellence in specific research or disciplinary areas were also awarded to SPA students’ research or projects. See below for a full list of the students’ projects and awards.

Of the 14 TCRSF competitors, eight were students in SPA's Advanced Science Research (ASR) course, taught by Cathleen Drilling and Karissa Baker; four were students in Dr. Kate Lockwood’s Advanced Technology Projects (ATP) course; and two worked independently. Both the ASR and ATP courses are designed for students who want to conduct independent original research in an area of their interest and choosing. “We’re really proud of our students’ projects, as they are completely of their own design," says ASR faculty Cathleen Drilling, who notes that the students go through the full scientific investigative process: selecting a topic, combing through the primary literature to find a "gap in knowledge" to investigate, designing the experiment, gathering and analyzing data, and then using their findings to create both a paper and a poster/presentation. "It is a challenging academic and scientific experience," Drilling says, "but one that allows them to apply so much of what they’ve learned throughout their science coursework at SPA. It’s thrilling when their efforts are commended externally."

Student projects

• Andrew Bai ‘23 & Annie Bai ‘24: The extreme cold in the context of a warmer planet and a cooler solar cycle
• Spencer Burris-Brown ‘22: Assessing the Influence of Personality on Active and Passive Procrastination among Adolescents
• Val Chafee ‘22: The Effect of Adolescent Temperature Variation on Development and Adult Performance in V. cardui
• Ben Chen ‘23: Recycled Plastic for Resilient Infrastructure
• Linnea Cooley ‘23: Effect of Ethanol and Octocrylene on the Cell Growth and Chlorophyll-a Levels of Cyclotella meneghiniana
• Cooper Bollinger-Danielson ‘23: The Effect of Varying Concentrations of Miracle-gro fertilizer on Composting Earthworm Ecosystems
• Per Johnson ‘22: The Effects of Temperature on Learning Complex Tasks in Red Harvester Ants
• Naci Konar-Steenberg ‘22: The Raft Game: An Experiment in Player-Centric Quasi-Random Terrain Generation
• Ruth Mellin ‘22 & Alex Moore ‘22: One-way ASL translation: 3D printed robotic hand with integrated speech recognition
• James Montague ‘22: Creation of a highly-efficient wind turbine: using wind detection and direction adjustment to optimize wind energy production
• Kishori Patel ‘22: The Effect of the Amount of Beef Food Source and Exposure Time on Calliphora vomitoria Pupation
• Will Sedo ‘22: Optimizing Waterflow in a Simulated River Environment

Competition Qualifications

Regeneron International Science and Engineering Fair (ISEF): Alex Moore '22 and Ruth Mellin '22, Finalists; Will Sedo '22: First Alternate; Linnea Cooley '23: Second Alternate

Minnesota State Science and Engineering Fair qualification (poster project): Cooper Bollinger-Danielson ’23; Spencer Burris-Brown ’22; Val Chafee ’22; Ben Chen ’23; Linnea Cooley ’23; Per Johnson ’22; Alex Moore ’22/Ruth Mellin ’22; Kishori Patel ’22; Will Sedo ’22

Minnesota Junior Science and Humanities Symposium qualification (research paper): Andrew Bai ’23/Annie Bai ’24; Spencer Burris-Brown ’22; Val Chafee ’22; Ben Chen ’23; Linnea Cooley ’23; Cooper Bollinger-Danielson ’23; Per Johnson ’22; Alex Moore ’22/Ruth Mellin ’22; Will Sedo ’22

Sponsored Awards

• 3M Film and Materials Science, Manufacturing Technology and Engineering Award: Will Sedo and Alex Moore & Ruth Mellin
• 3M Young Inventor Award: Ben Chen
• American Chemical Society: Runner Up: Ben Chen
• US Air Force: Alex Moore & Ruth Mellin
• Office of Naval Research: Ben Chen
• American Psychological Association: Kishori Patel
• Genius Olympiad: Will Sedo
• National Geographic Society: That’s Geography Award!: Linnea Cooley
• Society for In Vitro Biology: Val Chafee
• US Metric Association: Ben Chen
• Stockholm Junior Water Prize: Will Sedo and Cooper Bollinger-Danielson