The 54th annual Santa Clara Valley Science
and Engineering Fair, the Synopsys Championship, was held
Wednesday, March 12, at the San Jose Convention Center
(https://sites.google.com/site/synopsyschampionship/). As our
regional competition, it showcased and celebrated over 1050 local
6th-12th grade students who will become our future scientists,
engineers, technologists, and mathematicians. While these
students were supported by their parents, teachers/mentors, and
schools, they performed and presented independent research that
exceeded the bounds of their normal classroom studies. So
whether or not they were selected for the SCV-ACS awards or to
represent Santa Clara County at the Intel International Science
and Engineering Fair, they are all winners.
The SCV-ACS special award team of Dr. Gary
Bullard, Yvonne Duckett, Owen Gooding, Susan Oldham-Fritts
(chair), and Mark Kent judged 281 incredible projects to select
the winners of our two section awards:
$650 First Place Individual
Award: Audrey Caroline Cheng,, 10th grade, Gunn High School, for
Novel Mechanism for Attachment of Peptides to Functionalized
Carbon Nanotubes
$350 Second Place Individual
Award: Avni Pravin Madhani, 8th grade, Challenger School
-Sunnyvale, for Lye or Lime? Examining the Effect of Sodium
Hydroxide and Calcium Hydroxide on the Pretreatment of Corn Husks
in Ethanol Production
In addition, our team judged for the Promethium
Chapter of Iota Sigma Pi, the national honor society of women in
chemistry. We selected Ananya Karthik, 7th grade, Challenger
School -Sunnyvale, for A Greener Cleaner: Investigating a
Potential Biosorbent for the Removal of Heavy Metals from Aqueous
Solutions as recipient of their $50 award.
Susan Oldham-Fritts and Mark Kent presented these awards on
Sunday, April 6, at the Synopsys Championship Middle School and
High School Award Ceremoniesat the Heritage Theater in Campbell.
Synopsys judges Yvonne Duckett, Dr. Gary Bullard,
Susan Oldham-Fritts (chair), Owen Gooding, and Mark Kent
In addition to our special award judges, we’d
like to thank the category award judges for volunteering their
time and expertise. We also extend our thanks to Dr. Art
DeGeus, CEO of Synopsys, and also to Gary Robinson and Heidi Black
of the Synopsys Outreach Foundation for their continuing generous
support of local science students and their teachers.
Science fairs don’t happen without these committed students,
teachers, judges, and sponsors.
