Top winners headed to international science fair

LHS student to compete, younger girl to observe

Wednesday, May 6, 2009

The invention has not made it to NASA yet, but it won a grand award from the judges of the Prince George's Area Science Fair this spring, earning her a grand award and a spot at the upcoming international science fair.

The St. Mary's County Science and Engineering Fair Board now is trying to come up with the money needed to send Walker and a junior division winner to the Intel International Science and Engineering Fair held in Reno, Nev., on May 10 to May 15. The nonprofit board hosts the local event and covers fees to the regional event each year.

Walker's project, "Look at This MES," which stands for Martian environment simulator, "recreates the atmosphere, wind speeds, air pressure, temperature, solar radiation of Mars," she said.

"I've been working on it for three years. It's a continuation," Walker said. "Every year I expand on it … There're still some flaws I'm trying to work out."

Within the simulation chamber Walker is able to test materials to find out if they are suitable to send to the neighboring red planet.

She has even more plans, she said, including adding a feature that would simulate a dust devil, a type of whirlwind that can be electrically charged and is a common occurrence on Mars.

"It's really exciting," Walker, 18, said of her opportunity to compete at the international science fair.

She will be going with her parents, Judy and John Walker of Hollywood.

Sara Moore, a seventh-grade student at Spring Ridge Middle School, was the grand award winner in the junior division of the regional science fair, a prize that earned her a trip to the international science fair in Reno, too.

"She's going as a student observer," Walker said of her junior counterpart. "She will see what the projects are like so when she gets to high school, she'll know what the fair is about and have a better shot."

Moore's project, called "Feathered Flight Simulator," was inspired by several pet birds at her home. She wanted to determine the best way to clip a parrot's wings to limit the amount of lift they were able to attain and distance they were able to fly without making the bird unable to fly.

"Sara used a home-built, rubber-band-powered ornithopter, which is a flapping wing flight vehicle, to test 26 different wing-clipping configurations to determine which was the best," her mother, Heidi Moore, wrote in an e-mail.

The results of her 26 test configurations allowed her to find the best result without actually having to clip the bird's wings.

"This is pivotal because, just like getting a bad haircut, a poor wing cut cannot be readily fixed," her mother wrote.

Heidi Moore said she and her husband were thrilled that their daughter did so well with the project, which integrated aeronautical engineering design with veterinarian science. "Sara did an awesome job with this project and it is extremely thorough. She really knows her stuff on this topic," she said.

Forty-five St. Mary's students attended the Prince George's Area Science Fair where they received dozens of awards. Having both the senior and junior division winners from the same county is a feat, said Allan Hovland, president of the St. Mary's science fair board. But it also means the board will need to raise a total of almost $6,000 to send the two girls to the international fair.

The science fair board is an all-volunteer nonprofit group that relies entirely on community donations.

While the board had some money saved and already has received additional contributions from several area businesses, there is still a way to go, Hovland said.

jyeatman@somdnews.com