文/ Tiffany Whitfield

The next generation of budding scientists and engineers filled the Chartway Arena at the Ted Constant Convocation Center on April 13, 2024年弗吉尼亚州科学与工程博览会(VSSEF). bet8体育娱乐入口’s 理学院 and 巴顿工程学院 hosted this year’s crowning event. More than 220 students from across the Commonwealth of Virginia presented their projects that showcased their aptitude in science, 技术, 工程, 和数学(STEM).

VSSEF的共同赞助者包括Leidos和美国电力基金会.

The 220 VSSEF high school competitors worked for months on their projects and won their respective local and 11 regional fairs from all around Virginia to have the opportunity to face off. The wide range of STEM projects that students worked on were inspired based on personal experiences and their natural curiosity to explore 研究 on a deeper level.

高中选手早上7:30到达.m.，参加类别和特别奖的评审. 有157个项目和47个团队项目占据了查特威球馆的中心场地. Rows of projects lined the center court and students were able to interact and see the hard work put in by their peer competitors.

项目类别包括:动物科学, 化学, 机器人, 生物医学, 物理, 环境科学, 软件, 材料科学与微生物学, 仅举几个例子. 每个学生都展示了他们的分析能力, 研究, 设计, 在这个竞争激烈的比赛中向评委们展示演讲技巧.

Saumik Das, 来自伦敦学院, 谈到, Virginia competed in the category of Behavioral and Social Sciences and his project was inspired by his own premature birth. “My project is all about alleviating premature birth defects and this is really close to my heart as I was born premature at 26 weeks. I personally went through speech therapy and physical therapy and what my project is doing is essentially finding an affordable drug to alleviate premature birth defects and improve neonatal interaction and locomotion.”

三名选手组成的队伍, 伊莎贝尔胡佛, Lauren Kim和Zainab Soofi来自马纳萨斯市创新园总督学校, 维吉尼亚为他们的新研究项目工作了几个月. “We’re discovering the effect of noise pollution on the behaviors and development of brine shrimp,金说。. “During their incubation period we coded vibration machines with different intervals to simulate vibrations they may be exposed to in the real world,胡佛说. 研究小组收集了它们的运动、测量和存活率的数据. “The most significant thing is that they move significantly faster when they are exposed to this noise pollution, and this can have very drastic effects on ecosystems because they are such a large prey source for many different predators and predators cannot predict where their prey will go,苏菲说。.   

双人组合塔尼什·辛格和阿比纳夫·塔迪纳达来自米尔斯E. 弗吉尼亚州里士满的戈德温高中参加了物理竞赛. “We created a novel space navigation device that’s internally housed within the spacecraft; and it uses the properties of quantum mechanics within machine learning and from that we can detect the exact location of a spacecraft and it serves as a GPS system for space exploration,辛格说。. 他说:“我们已经为此工作了一年多.

经过五个小时的评判和审议, 17名学生完成了9个个人项目和3个团队项目, 大奖评审开始了.

组织如此规模的活动需要大量的团队努力. 加布里埃尔因特网, 运营经理兼理学院院长助理, 担任VSSEF展会总监. 贾斯汀•梅森, Michael and Kimthanh Lê天文馆的主任是VSSEF的助理展览主任.

弗兰克为这次比赛感到高兴. “看到这名学生的原创作品非常令人兴奋, 创新项目，其中许多解决了现实问题. ODU VSSEF was delighted to provide both a physical space for young scientists to showcase their work, 让学生有机会成为科学家和工程师社区的一员. My favorite part of this year’s VSSEF was hearing the students’ discussion when they left the arena floor after the category round judging. 他们的谈话似乎完全是关于他们与评委的互动, and it was great to hear their excitement when discussing the judges’ questions and comments.”

梅森很高兴看到学生们全身心地投入到比赛中. “科学博览会集中体现了学生的好奇心和创新的无限潜力. 每个项目都证明了动手学习和科学探索的力量. It was an honor for ODU to host the Virginia State Science and Engineering Fair for the past three years. 从2022年的虚拟博览会开始, 23年和24年的现场展览, 这是无数ODU教员的工作成果, 工作人员, 还有年复一年让这个活动取得巨大成功的学生们."

Additional vital team members included ODU’s Associate Dean Lesley Greene who served as the chair of the scientific review committee and ODU 化学 Lecturer Emily Hardy who served as judge coordinator.

Judges who volunteered their time were ODU faculty, graduate students, alumni and community partners. The array of projects that the high school competitors exhibited at the 2024 VSSEF made it challenging for judges.

评委们来自弗吉尼亚联邦的各个地方. 当地的专业人士承担着艰难的评判任务，其中包括美国国家航空航天局的雇员, 汉普顿路卫生区, 诺福克植物园, 和第一登陆州立公园. 还有来自汉普顿大学的教师和研究生, 弗吉尼亚理工大学, 威廉学院 & 玛丽和弗吉尼亚联邦大学. 大多数评委是ODU的教员和研究生. 

比赛期间, an outreach fair was held in the lobby of the Chartway Arena so these talented students could learn more about ODU. 来自各个办公室和部门的教员, 还有学生组织, filled the lobby of the Chartway Arena to talk to students and parents about the journey of Monarch opportunities.

下午3:30.m.， VSSEF颁奖典礼开始. VSSEF Vice President and Director of Roanoke Valley Governor’s School for Science and 技术 Mark Levy welcomed students during the awards ceremony. Then WHRV’s on-air talent and ODU alumnus, Doug Boynton served as the emcee for the awards ceremony.

博因顿向所有参赛选手表示祝贺，并说, “今天下午大家来到诺福克真是太棒了. 你们这么努力才走到今天.”

看到 ODU的科学学院Flickr for a full set of photos from the very active day of the 2024 VSSEF competition and to see winners and an array of projects.

赢家

以下是12个类别的获奖者名单. 看到 2024年VSSEF的完整获奖者名单以及特别奖获得者.

动物，行为和社会科学

  • 首先: 伊莎贝尔胡佛, Lauren Kim和Zainab Soofi  
  • Title人为振动对盐渍蒿行为和发育的影响

行为与社会科学与细胞 & 分子生物学

  • 首先: Saumik Das
  • Title: The effect of koumine on social interaction and locomotion of a traumatic injury induced Drosophila melanogaster offspring model (mimicking preterm birth effects)

生物医学科学，生物医学工程 & 医学翻译

  • 首先:安娜·莫汉蒂
  • Title: Alcott: A Convolutional Neural Network to Predict Multimeric Interactions in HIV-1 Neural Infection

细胞，分子和计算生物学 & 生物化学

  • 首先Roger Zhu 
  • Title神经调节传递的体内纳米研究

化学

  • 首先:阿什丽塔·甘地
  • Title: Combating Pediatric Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia with Plant-Derived Biocompounds Quercetin & 长春新碱

地球与环境科学

  • 首先:韦斯利·康
  • Title一种预测废水诱发地震的数学模型

工程技术 & 可持续设计

  • 首先: Chetana Gunawardhana
  • Title: HypeFL:潜水飞行器设计研究

材料科学

  • 首先瓦莱里娅·诺沃娅
  • Title优化石墨化碳氮化，创造安全, 有效的, 氢储存的经济形式

微生物学

  • 首先加布里埃拉·孔德  
  • Title:针对目标的最佳声音频率. 大肠杆菌生物膜在医疗器械上的根除

物理、数学和天文学

  • 首先塔尼什·辛格和阿比纳夫·塔迪纳达  
  • Title: Novel Application of Quantum Machine 学习 for Pulsar Classification using Qubit-Based Encoding and Bloch Sphere Mapping

植物科学

  • 首先约瑟芬·伊顿
  • Title:甘氨酸max去除土壤微塑料的效果

机器人，软件和嵌入式系统

  • 首先: Anant Khandelwal, Sritan Motati和Siddhant Sood
  • Title基于扩散的条件网格合成高效3D原型  

Each of the grand prize winners will get an all-expenses paid trip to attend the international competition, Regeneron ISEF 2024, 世界上最大的大学预科STEM竞赛将于5月11日至17日在洛杉矶举行, 加州洛杉矶会议中心.

自2021年以来，ODU一直主办这些活动，而VSSEF将于2025年在新址举行.