BREMERTON, Wash. — For the 11th consecutive year, members of the Bremerton/Olympic Peninsula Council (BOPC) of the Navy League of the United States (NLUS) served as judges for the 2024 Washington State Science and Engineering Fair (WSSEF) on April 5th (Grades 1-8) and April 6th (Grades 9-12). As part of the council’s initiatives in supporting youth interest in Science, Engineering, Technology, and Mathematics (STEM), 27 council volunteers filled various roles over two days to help recognize the accomplishments of more than 500 future scientists and engineers from across the Evergreen State.
For the second year after the pandemic, during which the fair was held virtually for three years, it was held in-person at Bremerton High School in Bremerton, Washington. Since 2014, the BOPC has been providing volunteers and presenting special cash awards to “…those students whose projects best contributed to the advancement of science, technology, engineering, or mathematics in support of our nation’s Sea Services (Navy, Marines, Coast Guard, and Merchant Marine).” This year, two awards were presented each in Grade 1-3 and Grades 4-6; and four awards were presented in each Grades 7-8 and Grade 9-12 (up from two each in prior years).
BOPC judges who directly supported main fair judging reviewed the display material brought by the students, listened to the students’ presentations, asked questions of the students to probe their knowledge of the material and scientific principles, and scored their projects using a rubric provided by the fair. All projects were required to have a poster board with specific sections and a journal, while others also included items from their experiments or working models of their designs.
But this year, the council’s contributions were even more diverse. In addition to council members serving as fair judges and judging for the Navy League special awards cited above, BOPC volunteers also served as lead judges and helped with administrative duties. Lead judges coordinated the efforts of multiple judges in their assigned teams or grade levels, and led caucuses to determine final project scores and ranking.
Naturally, not every volunteer was able to participate both days (a Friday and a Saturday). But the feedback from council members who did participate was overwhelmingly positive. For example, after the fair, Gene Melson shared, “I have participated as a judge in scholastic science fairs many times over the years. It never fails: I learn something new and unexpected every time, and I come away encouraged and heartened by the prodigious talent and energy these youngsters bring to bear on their projects.”
Council President Tom Zwolfer, in addition to serving as a fair lead judge, served as the master of ceremonies for the award presentations each evening. He was assisted by Council Judge Advocate Alan Schrader, who took on the Herculean task of handing-out the hundreds of trophies, certificates and checks to winners. In appreciation for their important contribution to the fair this year, WSSEF President and Head Judge, Dr. Michael Huey, took time out of the second-day award ceremony to present commemorative plaques to Zwolfer and Schrader.
In particular, Joleen Garcia from platinum sponsor and community affiliate Dignity Memorial Miller Woodlawn did a beautiful job writing-in all the names of awards winners on the certificates in the short interval between completion of judging and and the ceremonies…talk about a high-pressure role! And Maggie Arbeeny, also from platinum sponsor and community affiliate Dignity Memorial Miller Woodlawn, volunteered to fill an emergent lead judge opening on only her second-ever day of fair judging!
Mindy Rocha-Barella, Western Washington Area General Manager of Dignity Memorial Miller Woodlawn, was one of the first volunteers to step forward this year and further encouraged strong participation from her team…even enlisting her husband to join-in! She was not disappointed in the experience, “[I] Had a great couple of days. So incredibly inspiring to get to be in the presence of such talented youth. Thanks for allowing me this opportunity.”
Four council board members, Past Presidents Alan Beam and Dave Ellingson, and Kristina Younger and Kevin Torcolini, were dedicated to judging Navy League special awards both days. Because the award criteria were similar, this smaller team worked closely with the Office of Naval Research (ONR), represented by Cmdr. Art Ceraldi, to help help evaluate and select the ONR award-wining projects. The two groups also caucused together and coordinated the awards to avoid redundancy and to best expose the largest number of bright minds to the Navy and Navy League.
Overall, Cmdr. Ceraldi was very impressed with all the projects he evaluated. “These projects are awesome! I can immediately take many of them right back to the engineers in my group.”
Recipients of the 2024 NLUS BOPC STEM Awards at the WSSEF were (all schools in Washington State; location not repeated if the school was so named):
High School:
- Elliot Honeycutt from Mountlake Terrace High School for “Simulating the Effects of Changing the Blade Tip Geometry of a Boxprop Propeller Blade on the Aerodynamic Performance of a Boxprop Propeller;”
- Nishant Vikramaditya from Interlake High School in Bellevue for “Development of a Reusable Launch Vehicle with Active Altitude Control;”
- Maya Winkes from Mount Vernon High School for “The Future In A Wing;” and Nicole Samaan from Hanford High School for “Microgrid Optimization: The Future of Efficient, Reliable, and Autonomous Renewable Energy.”
Grades 7-8:
- Lily Nguyen from Madison Middle School in Seattle for her cryptology project, “Efficient Encryption Using Large Primes for Secure Communication;”
- Anusha Arora from Odle Middle School in Bellevue for “Dynamic Dexterity: Exploring Innovations in Robotic Arm Kinematics and Control for Multi-faceted Applications;”
- Samuel Pan-Chen Wang from Enterprise Middle School in West Richland for “Sonic Fire Suppression: Investigating the Impact of Low-Frequency Waves to Revolutionize Fire Mitigation;”
- Mihika Darena from The Overlake School in Redmond for “Human Electromyogram (EMG) for Robotic Manipulation.”
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Grades 4-6:
- Dhiya Kumaraguru from Tambark Creek Elementary School in Bothell for “Evaluating the Efficacy of Diverse Stress Alleviation Techniques: A Comprehensive Study in Children and Adults;”
Grades 1-3:
- Piyu Upadhyay from Rock Creek Elementary School in Maple Valley for “Brighter Futures: Lighting Up Our World with Waste.”
Swapnil Choudhury from Sagebrush Elementary School in Richland for “Making Learning Robots inside Scratch Game Engine; - Aishwarya Polali from Bonney Lake Elementary School for “Traveling Sound Waves.”
- Cheryl Davis from silver sponsor and community affiliate Suquamish Tribe Foundation/ Suquamish Clearwater Casino captured it best when she said, “A truly wonderful and rewarding experience to see our future scientists and engineers at work. Looking forward to being a part of the WSSEF next year!”
The WSSEF was started by the Bremerton Council of the Parent’s Teacher’s Association in 1957 with an original budget of $25, and has been held in Kitsap Country all but one year since inception. Before Bremerton High School, the fair was more recently held at Olympic College.
More information about the BOPC can be found at http://bremolympicnlus.wordpress.com.
