RCPS middle and high school students compete in the 2026 Roanoke County Science Fair

The Roanoke County Science Fair was held on Saturday, Feb. 21 at Hidden Valley High School.  More than 100 students presented 87 projects at the middle and high school levels.  Winners in each category will advance to the regional science fair at Roanoke College in March.

Middle School (1st and 2nd place winners advance to the regional science fair)

Biochemistry:

• 1st place:  Carbs- Take Your Mark, Get Set, Fuel! A Model Stomach Experiment by Jude Hypes (CSMS)
• 2nd place:  Fighting Free Radicals: How Antioxidants Protect Organisms Health by Manha Nasser (CSMS)
• 3rd place:  The Effect of pH Level on the Time it Takes for Amylase to Break Down Starch by Aadhya Routh (CSMS)

Chemistry:

• 1st place:  The Negative Effects Ocean Acidification Has on Marine Organisms by Cora Singleton (NMS)
• 2nd place:  What is the correlation between fruit's pH & vitamin C? by Lila Powel, Abigail Kinzie, Temperance Tyree, (HVMS)

Earth and Environmental Sciences:

• 1st place:  How Clean Can Water Get from Filtering it with Different Materials? by Emma Rottkamp (GMS)
• 2nd place:  From Fertilizer to Stream: Tracking pH Changes under Chemical and Organic Treatments by Gabrielle Amo-Mensah
• 3rd place:  The Effect of Soil Types on Winter Rye Plant Growth by Flynn Maguire (GMS)

Energy:

• 1st place:  The Influence a LED Lightbulb's Kelvin has on the Temperature by Graham Hailey (CSMS)
• 2nd place:  Which one has more volts? - potato battery or lemon battery? by Sadie Gold, Zoey Johnston (GMS)
• 3rd place:  The Effect of the Amount of Solar Energy on how far a car Travels by Harper Rowan, Hara Oh, Savreen Kaur (HVMS)

Engineering Technology/Environmental Engineering/Translational Medical Science:

• 1st place:  What is the Best Natural Insulator for Warmth? by Cooper Wolfe (CSMS)
• 2nd place:  Which Type of Glue Is the Strongest? by Asher Ford, Grady Horrell (GMS)
• 3rd place:  The Effect of Different Filtration Methods on Water Clarity by Brenner Alterio (WBMS)

Materials Science:

• 1st place:  Pick Power: The Effect of different materials used in place of picks on guitar sounds by Cormac Brady (WBMS)
• 2nd place:  Moisturizer Madness: The effect of moisturizer on water lost through skin by Tenley Gusler (WBMS)
• 3rd place:  Optimizing Goggles Clarity by Jaylen Smith (NMS)

Physics:

• 1st place:  Magnetism and Temperature: A Study by Chance Nguyen (WBMS)
• 2nd place:  The Effect of Popsicle Stick Bridge Design on Maximum Load Capacity by Jagadeesh Balaji (CSMS)
• 3rd place:  How Much Force does it Take for a Block to Move on Different Surfaces? by Hadleigh Sanders, Amelia Hutchinson (HVMS)

Plant Sciences/Microbiology:

• 1st place:  The Effects of Different Wavelengths of Visible Light on the Mass of Arthrospira platensis by Matthew Gard, Hudson Brendel, Jaxson Kuzmich (GMS)
• 2nd place:  Which Soil Type Helps Plants Grow Best? by Madison Malek, Ivy Cook, Alyssa Hight (GMS)
• 3rd place:  Effect of Light on Plant Growth by Everett Creasey, Will Shrewsbury (GMS)

 

High School (1st, 2nd and 3rd place winners advance to the regional science fair)

Animal Sciences/Biomedical and Health Sciences:

• 1st place:  A Noninvasive Method for Skin Hydration Quantification Assisted by Data-Driven Modeling by Alishba Sofi (HVHS)
• 2nd place:  Effects of Zinc on Daphnia Magna by Lilia Schwab, Lily Cook, Genesis Del (GHS)
• 3rd place:  Which is Faster Acting: A Leading Brand of Antacids or an All-Natural Alternative? By Julia Carroll (GHS)

Behavioral and Social Sciences:

• 1st place:  Threat-Induced Affiliation Under Targeted Neural Pathway Inhibition in Mice by Ayush Pinnamaraju (CSHS/RVGS)
• 2nd place:  The Effect of Music on Short-Term Memory by Norah Buck (WBHS)
• 3rd place:  An Analysis of How Gender and Age Affects Self-Reported Intensity of Social Anxiety by Nate Buck (WBHS)

Chemistry/Microbiology:

• 1st place:  The Effects of Vancomycin and Thyme Essential Oil on Bacillus cereus by Katherine Karolyi, Brooklyn Hemphill (GHS/RVGS)
• 2nd place:  Quantitative Analysis of Ion Dissociation on Freezing Point Depression by Kyleigh Ginger, Noah Wheeler (WBHS)
• 3rd place:  DNA Damage by Joshika Karthik, Vina Abdulkarim (HVHS)

Earth and Environmental Science (A):

• 1st place:  The Effects of Human Activity on the Tributaries and Watersheds of the Upper Roanoke River by Marygann Jenkins (WBHS)
• 2nd place:  How the elevation of different locations in the Roanoke Valley affects the amount of cellular service on an iPhone by Madi Salinas, Addison Weaver, Kate Kasmer (HVHS)
• 3rd place:  The Effect of Sound Pollution on Bird Biodiversity by Emree Horton (CSHS)

Earth and Environmental Science (B):

• 1st place:  The Effect of Environmental Conditions on The Decomposition Rate of Starch Bioplastic Films by Elle Graffeo (GHS)
• 2nd place:  The Effects of Different Sunscreens on Water Daphnia by Ella Modica, Jillian Roberts (GHS)
• 3rd place:  Comparative and Morphological Analysis of Microplastic Concentrations in Appalachian Regional Waters by Eesha Sethumadhavan (CSHS)

Energy/Materials Science:

• 1st place:  Investigating Cable Strain Reliefs by Jeanne-Eugenie Picard (CSHS/RVGS)
• 2nd place:  The Effect of Temperature on the Performance of a Fuel Cell, After Electrolysis, to Determine the Efficiency of a Fuel Cell by Aaron Start (WBHS)
• 3rd place:  The effect of a homemade water filter on water quality by Murtaza Khan (NHS)

Environmental Engineering/Engineering Technology:

• 1st place:  Design and Evaluation of a Low-Cost Passive Microplastic Filtration System by Anika Parashar (HVHS/RVGS)
• 2nd place:  Newborn Neonatal EMS Transport Harness by Miya Morton (HVHS/RVGS)
• 3rd place:  The Effects of Different Rover Wheel Designs on a Distance on a Simulated Terrestrial Planet Surface by Ace Adkins (WBHS)

Physics/Mathematics:

• 1st place:  The Effect of Different Banking Methods and Firms on Financial Income in Relation to Predicted Inflation Rates by Christopher Boyd (WBHS)
• 2nd place:  The Effect of Internal Composition of Baseballs Utilized by Various Age Ranges on Exit Velocity as Measured from a Stationary Bat by Hudson Cain, Cooper Peery (WBHS)

Plant Sciences:

• 1st place:  Translational Genomics: Utilizing AgNORs, Chromosomal Aberrations, and the Mitotic Index in Allium cepa to Identify Genomic Targets for Salinity Resistance in Rice by Prisha Tiwari (HVHS/RVGS)
• 2nd place:  The Effect of Hydroponic Systems vs. Soil-based Systems on the Growth Rate of Spinacia Oleracea by Levi Whitcomb, Jack Petersen (WBHS)
• 3rd place:  The Effects of Hydroponic Fertilizer on Water Hyacinth by Emma Peters, Mackenzie Miller (GHS)

Systems Software/Embedded Systems/Robotics:

• 1st place:  PPE Surveillance System by Caleb Wang (HVHS/RVGS)
• 2nd place:  LIGHT: LiDAR-Infrared Geometric Hierarchical Transformer for Autonomous Search and Rescue by Minh Nguyen (NHS)
• 3rd place:  A System-Level Software Architecture for Multi-Omics Data Harmonization and Machine Learning based Computational Analysis of the Elite Controller HIV Phenotype by Samyak Srivastava (CSHS/RVGS)