Applied Mechanics & Structures
Objectives/Goals The purpose of my project is to see if wheelchairs for playing wheelchair tennis can be further improved upon. I intend to design and test a model system that utilizes a han…
Often physically challenged and aged persons have to rely on the use of mobility assistive devices such as walking frames to aid with their mobility, balance and support. In the event of the…
First Award
On Mars, research rovers traversing the surface are frequented by harsh Martian dust storms which are harmful because dust clogs or coats their optics, sensors, and solar panels, reducing th…
Systems Software
Parkinson’s disease is a neurodegenerative disorder and its root cause is the aggregation of the protein a-synuclein, which leads to neural cell death. There exists no technique through whic…
Energy: Sustainable Materials and Design
The study began with an interesting phenomenon in scientific activity. The past research had shown the coloration of starch and iodine is a joint result of iodide ion and water. It is diffic…
Second Award
Alzheimer’s is a devastating and debilitating condition which affects humans, particularly in their senior years. It causes loss of short-term memory which results in disorientation and crea…
Environmental Engineering
Objectives/Goals The purpose of this project is to build an efficient Internet of Things (IoT) application for aquaponics in order to create an autonomous, self-regulating system that can be…
As time progresses, the world is looking for an energy that can replace the nonrenewable fossil fuels: coal, natural gas, and gasoline which release greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. I e…
This paper investigates patterns in the solutions of variations of three different “hat games,” and attempts to create generalized solutions. Hat games are logic problems phrased in terms of…
Translational Medical Science
This research determined methods for both cell lysis and cell stasis based on simple methods in metabolic engineering. These methods could be useful to maximize the amount of product produce…
Dating more than fifty years, controlling the Aedes aegypti mosquito in Costa Rica has been a major problem; this mosquito is the vector for the dengue virus and lately the Chikungunya virus…
Environmental Science
Objectives/Goals In September our class went on a weeklong trip to Catalina to learn about the ocean. When I returned home, I took my own plankton sample, and I found microplastic. A goal of…
Energy: Sustainable Materials and Design
Third Award
More than 60% of yearly deaths are caused by chronic and degenerative diseases such as cardiovascular, cancer, Alzheimer's and diabetes. Overexpressed free radicals are the precursors and pr…
First Award
An exact algorithm for counting the models of Boolean formulas in CNF (the #SAT problem) was developed. Unlike conventional backtracking-based approaches which measure the effect of incremen…
Genetic mutations, often characterized by single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNP), have been shown to act as the main cause of varying gene expression, leading to the onset of many cancers. In…
Energy: Sustainable Materials and Design
Third Award
This project fulfills future demands and need for sustainable, cheap resources. We have discovered that macroalgae, an underutilized resource, can be fermented and used for animal feed, fert…
Energy: Sustainable Materials and Design
Objective: There are currently not many efficient methods for enrichment of phosphorylated proteins in complex biological samples. However, phosphoproteins play a significant role in several…
Biomedical and Health Sciences
There are over 76 million people with alcohol-related disorders in the world, and the economic cost of alcohol addiction in the U.S. alone is over $224 billion annually. Animal models are cr…
In recent years, there has been an upsurge in mobile device use. In addition to this, there has been a relative stall in the development of battery technology in comparison to the developmen…
Color is an important aspect of human life and one day structural colors, never fading and mimicking nature, could replace toxic pigments. Aqueous suspensions from Cellulose Nanocrystals (CN…
During a presentation for a science competition, a group called the Not Impossible Foundation presented their work in the war torn areas of Africa. They went to this area to fit a child with…
DNA and RNA microarrays are important tools to measure the gene expression levels in cells. However, these technologies have major limitations, such as their inability to detect genetic aber…
Plant Biology
Honorable_mention Award
Objectives/Goals The objective is to determine the effects of sugarcane derived biochar on the drought tolerance of Lycopersicon esculentum and Lactuca sativa variation longifolia. Methods/M…
Microbiology (General)
Second Award
Objectives/Goals This experiment was designed to determine if bacterial metabolism plays an important role in soil-based Microbial Fuel Cells based on its increase or decrease in voltage, am…
Biochemistry
Toxoplasma gondii is an obligate intracellular parasite with seropositivity exhibited in 2 billion humans globally. There are three canonical strains of T. gondii which infect the Central Ne…
Biomedical Engineering
Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS) is a fatal neurodegenerative disease that leads to severe metabolic deficits. This project investigates the molecular mechanisms of metabolic dysregulatio…
Systems Software
The accurate representation of voter preference is a question in current U.S. Congressional elections. Shortest split line algorithms were used to test whether or not gerrymandering was the…
Mammalian Biology
Third Award
Objectives/Goals Cancer is the second most common cause of death in the US. Early diagnosis is the key to cure cancer and increase the patient's survival rate. The current computer aided dia…
Fourth Award
Because traditional (experimental) methods of drug design involve trial and error, they are expensive and time-consuming. Intrinsically disordered proteins (IDPs) are structurally flexible p…
Second Award
An estimated 25 million people in the United States suffer from diseases for which there is no effective FDA-approved treatment. This issue exists for a variety of reasons; development of dr…