The Regional Science and Engineering Fair has always been a source of excitement for Academies of Loudoun students, and the pandemic did not stop student enthusiasm! The 2021 fair, similar to last year’s, was held virtually. During the week of March 18th-25th, RSEF competitors participated in interviews with judges and presented their hard work and findings. 

The winners for RSEF were announced on March 26th. 

Five projects were selected to be International Science and Engineering Finalists and will be featured in the virtual competition from May 16th to May 21st.

Three of the finalist projects were by ACL students! ACL students also placed in multiple category awards, winning all the category awards for the Engineering Mechanics, Mathematics and Physics & Astronomy, and Systems Software categories. See the Academies of Loudoun Winners below. 

 

ISEF Finalists:

Brian Minnick, A Self-Replicating 3D Printer

John Nowinski, Identification of Albedo Variegations in Near-Earth Asteroids Through the Comparison of Optical and Infrared Data

Adelynn Jones and Jaehee Kim, Automatic Music Generation with Deep Learning

 

Animal Science Category Winners:

Chelsea Neumann (1st Place), Designing a Piezoelectric Pressure Mat for the Analysis of Saddle Fit

Nicholas Mitchell (3rd Place), An Explication of Behavioral Changes in Hirudo verbana by Nociceptive Stimulation

 

Behavioral and Social Sciences Category Winners:

Sahar Choudhury (1st Place), An Analysis of Demographic Discrepancies in SRO-Related Discipline in Loudoun County Public Schools

Justin Kim (3rd Place), An Investigation on the Relationship Between Opioid-Attributed Fatalities and Evictions in Virginia

 

Biomedical & Health Sciences Category Winners:

Samuel Veliveli (1st Place), Using Wearable Tech to Prevent Fatigue Induced Injuries in the Muscle Rectus Femoris (Quadricep)

Alina Alfaro (3rd Place), Determining the Effect of Nanoplastics on Locomotion in Parkinson’s and Wild Type Model Drosophila melanogaster

 

Cellular and Molecular Biology & Microbiology Category Winners:

Kunal Bahl (1st Place), Testing the Gamma-Interaction Model’s Effectiveness in Predicting the Growth Rates of Escherichia coli

 

Computational Biology & Informatics Category Winners:

Saanvi Kandala (3rd Place), A Computer-Aided Drug Design (CADD) Approach for Determining Optimal Inhibitors of the PKM2 Enzyme in Tumor Cells

Navya Aenugu and Aakash Mehta (Honorable Mention), ElectroEG: A Novel Approach to Disorderly Electroencephalography (EEG) Sleep Signals for Blue Light Detection

 

Embedded Systems & Intelligent Machines Category Winners:

Akshath Mahajan and Rashmi Francis (2nd Place), SignNet: Using Real Time Fingerspelling Translation to Allow the Hard of Hearing to Communicate with Voice Controlled Devices

 

Energy: Sustainable Materials and Design & Environmental Engineering Category Winners:

David Taliaferro (1st Place), Creating an Adaptable, Streamlined Approach to Site-Specific Weed Management

Namita Sajai (3rd Place), Lagrangian Modeling of Abundance and Hydrodynamics of Microplastic Transport in the Surface Waters of the Northwest Potomac River

 

Engineering Mechanics Category Winners:

Brian Minnick (1st Place), A Self-Replicating 3D Printer

Akshita Panigrahi (2nd Place), Designing a Fluid Flow Structure for a Liquid-Propellant Rocket Engine System Based on Computational Fluid Dynamic Modeling of Cerebrospinal Fluid Dynamics of the Brain

Vicky Le (3rd Place), Combining Polar Units with Adjustable Pin Locations to Create Expandable Natural Disaster Shelters

Siddharth Lakkoju (Honorable Mention), An Investigation of the Audio Signature of Trailing to Leading Edge Serrations on a Dual Blade Propeller for Small UAV Applications

 

Materials Science Category Winners:

Fletcher Zuckerman (1st Place), Fabrication of a 3D Printed Marimba Key to Reduce Marimba Key Cost

Kathryn Hanson (3rd Place), Researching the Compounds in Cicada Exuviae and Wings in Order to Determine the Possibility of Creating a Natural and More Efficient Waterproofing Substance

 

Mathematics & Physics and Astronomy Category Winners:

John Nowinski (1st Place), Identification of Albedo Variegations in Near-Earth Asteroids Through the Comparison of Optical and Infrared Data

Ishan Saha (2nd Place), Searching for High-Density Regions of Asteroids Using Chaotic Satellite Trajectories

Alexander Evitt and Elizabeth Sellers (3rd Place), Differentiating Blazars Using Optical Variability with Machine Learning

Yihong Song and Rohit Prasanna (Honorable Mention), Prediction of Stellar Activity through Machine Learning and Asteroseismic Analysis

 

Plant Science Category Winners:

Anwita Molaka (1st Place), Determining the Effects of Rice Water and Banana Peel Extract on the Growth of Radish Plants (Raphanus sativus var. Longipinnatus) Exposed to Salt Stress

Dheemanth Munipalli (3rd Place), The Effect of Homogenous Magnetic Fields on Plant Growth and Development 

 

Systems Software Category Winners:

Adelynn Jones and Jaehee Kim (1st Place), Automatic Music Generation with Deep Learning 

Ihita Bolisetty (2nd Place), Pulse: A Transfer Learning Initialized Dual-DNN for Real-Time Atrial Fibrillation Detection from Noisy Cardiac Signals 

Divya Lobo (3rd Place), Tracking the Progression of Parkinson’s Disease: Recording and Storing Tremor 

 

Translational Medical Science Category Winners:

Avinash Komarlingam and Rohan Bhansali (1st Place), A Multi-Network Deep Learning Algorithm for Comprehensive Thoracic Radiograph Classification 

Meenakashi Kakani (2nd Place), The Effect of Gamma Amino Butyric Acid Supplement on Neutral Firing in Crickets 

Noelle Koo (3rd Place), Determining Effects of Novel Individual and Combinatorial Treatments of CoQ10 and Protein-FSTL1 on Tissue Regeneration Post-Injury in Planarians 

 

Apart from category awards and ISEF finalist status, RSEF participants also had the opportunity to win special awards. Some ACL students even won multiple! 

 

Willowcroft Science Award: 

Student Recipient: Akshita Panigrahi

Teacher Recipient: John Crowley

 

Aspiring Scientist Award:

Ekaterina Semenikhina (Biochemistry and Chemistry Recipient)

Shalini Panthangi (Computational Biology & Bioinformatics Recipient)

Jeremy Suh (Embedded Systems and Robotics & Intelligent Machines Recipient) 

Avik Banjaree (Engineering Mechanics Recipient)

Yihong Song and Rohit Prasanna (Mathematics and Physics & Astronomy Recipients)

Jacob Wilcox (Plant Sciences Recipient)

 

American Institute of Aeronautics & Astronautics Award:

Akshita Panigrahi

John Nowinski 

Ishan Saha

Yihong Song and Rohit Prasanna

 

AIHA Outstanding Project in Environmental, Health & Safety Award:

Shriharit Eda and Advait Amdekar (2nd Place)

Marissa Martin (3rd Place)

 

American Legion Children and Youth Award:

Saumya Sharma

 

American Psychological Association:

Sahar Choudhury

 

Collins Aerospace Award:

Avik Banerjee

Brian Minnick

 

Federal Water Quality Association Award:

Namita Sajai (2nd Place Individual)

 

Geological Society of Washington Award:

John Nowinski (1st Place)

 

IEEE Technology Awards:

Chelsea Neumann (IEEE Technology Achievement Award)

Samuel Veliveli (IEEE Technology Achievement Award)

Jeremy Suh (IEEE Technology Excellence Award)

Shriharit Eda and Advait Amdekar (IEEE Technology Excellence Award)

Brian Minnick  (IEEE Technology Excellence Award)

Pranav Singh and Darsh Devkar (IEEE Technology Excellence Award)

Avik Banjaree (IEEE Technology Innovation Award)

 

IT Cadre Innovation Award:

Brian Minnick

 

Keep Loudoun Beautiful Award:

Namita Sajai (2nd Place)

 

James M. Rowley Award:

Namita Sajai

 

MIT Club of Washington DC:

John Nowinski

Amy Le and Anurag Gottipati

 

Mu Alpha Theta Award:

Ishan Saha

 

NASA Earth Systems Science Award:

Hao Gu

 

Potomac Geophysical Society Award:

John Nowinski (1st Place)

Yihong Song and Rohit Prasanna (2nd Place)

Namita Sajai (3rd Place)

Pranav Singh and Darsh Devkar (Honorable Mention)

 

Ricoh Sustainable Development Award:

David Taliaferro

 

Secret Garden Wildlife Awareness Award:

David Taliaferro

 

United States Air Force Award:

Brian Minnick

Ishan Saha

 

US Stockholm Junior Water Prize:

Namita Sajai

Hao Gu

 

USPHS Distinguishing Achievement in Medicine & Public Health:

Amy Le and Anurag Gottipati (2nd Place)

Divya Lobo (Meritorious Achievement)

 

Virginia Lakes and Watershed Award:

Hao Gu (Junior Award)

 

Yale Science and Engineering Association Award:

Akshita Panigrahi

To see the full list of winners and RSEF participants’ abstracts and presentations, visit 2021 LCPS RSEF. You can also view the congregated book of abstracts here.

 

The Academies of Loudoun wishes the best of luck to the Loudoun ISEF finalists in May and congratulates all the RSEF winners! We are proud of all our students who participated despite the difficult circumstances posed by this year!

written by Tryphena Pilli

edited by Keerthi Selvam and Saanvi Gutta