Participants of the annual science fair faced challenges head-on, using their ingenuity and perseverance to design, build, and test original projects, getting inspiration from a diverse range of interests. At the end of the day, students took home seven awards and recognized the graduating class.
Juniors Madhav Warrier and Aarush Naik’s project, an almost year-long commitment, focused on modeling combustion-induced oxidative stress in fruit flies. Both being big car enthusiasts, the pair wanted to incorporate their interest into their project by investigating the gases these fuels produce.
In trying to research their project, Warrier and Naik faced challenges with many labs.
“We got rejected by a bunch of universities in working for their labs cause they have a lot of issues with age and safety like hazards and everything cause we’re under 18,” Naik said.
The two decided to instead build their own microscope, taking a preexisting 3D printable design and modifying it for their project. Both noted that the project took a lot of hard work.
Sophomore Pranav Warrier focused his project on studying the bacterial inhibition of various types of honey. He and his teammate found inspiration from videos on social media discussing the subject and their passion for chemistry.
“I was really interested cause I wanted to see how antibacterial this honey was, cause a ton of sources said it was really antibacterial, and it had a ton of good substances,” Warrier said. “I said why not put this to the test?”
While testing, the duo faced an unexpected issue with measuring the diameter of the bacterial zones due to significant overlap. The team solved this issue by measuring the radius from the center point to the edge instead.
Senior Dylan Striek, now headed to Dartmouth College for environmental engineering and economics, aimed to create a solution to the common, expensive, and painful glucose monitors. Striek’s project took inspiration from his grandparents and mother.
“Both of my grandparents and my mom have type two diabetes,” said Striek. “I kind of saw that they were pricking their fingers multiple times a day and it was really painful.”
For Striek, his biggest challenge was being unable to test on humans. Instead, he pivoted to testing his design on silk worms, an established model for glucose testing.
This year marks the town’s 37th annual science fair. Kristen Murphy, science fair alumni and now director of the program, finds it very special to be able to give students the same opportunity to work on the program that was so impactful on her. Murphy was very proud of the work and commitment this year.
“I think it was a really fun night, and I’m super impressed by the projects the students did and how hard they worked today,” said Murphy.
This science fair saw many returning faces as well as many new ones. In fact, it was the biggest freshman class the school has ever seen.
Striek and eight other teams are gearing up for the regional competitions at Worcester Polytechnic Institute to compete against 100 other teams. The top third of projects will go on to advance to the state fair and, from there, the international fair.
Hopkinton’s scientists are excited to continue improving and reiterating their projects and participating in future science fairs.
