Students from Windsor schools win at science fair

Students from Windsor schools have won several awards at the Connecticut Science and Engineering Fair.

The annual fair took place in Hamden last week. Judges posted finalists on Tuesday and announced winners on Saturday.

The fair was broken up into categories, including physical science, life science, urban school challenge, biotechnology, and engineering.

A middle school team from Madina Academy took home first place for a project observing the physiological effects of video games on players. Amer Kabatilo, Zain Kabatilo, and Ahmad Zoghol recorded heart rate, temperature, and blood pressure before and after experiment participants played video games from the genres horror, adventure, and shooter. They found the changes in excitement and nervousness experienced during game play did have a physiological effect on players.

A high school team from the Capitol Region Education Council’s Academy of Aerospace and Engineering in Windsor came in first place in the physical science category. Jean Pasato, Chris Rinaldi, and Vishakh Talanki found optimal positioning and quantity of wind turbines to increase efficiency and energy produced in low wind settings. They were able to increase wind power efficiency by 7 percent during their experiment.

Another team from the same school also took home a first place recognition in the Urban School Challenge category for its project regarding the strength of glass. Srikar Godilla and Cristian Rodriguez researched the creation of Prince Rupert drops — or, in layman’s terms, drops of glass created by dropping molten hot glass into water. They adjusted the contents of the water to find a solution that yielded stronger glass, earning them first place and a ticket to the Intel International Science and Engineering fair.

CREC Academy has another student heading to ISEF. Keshav Vedula won by studying the effect of different shapes of airfoils on lift, drag, and stall. For non-engineers, this means he manipulated the shape of the wing of an aircraft to see if it affected the way the aircraft moved in a wind tunnel. He 3D-printed experimental wings, shaped like the fin of a humpback whale, and compared them to a traditionally designed airfoil.

Students heading to ISEF will go to Pittsburgh in May for the largest pre-college competition in the world, with about 1,800 students from 75 countries and offering $4 million in prizes.

Originally published by the Journal Inquirer.