BAKERSFIELD, Calif. (KERO) — Three Greenfield School District middle schools are heading to the State Science and Engineering Fair after each claimed first place in separate categories at the county competition a historic first for the district.
Greenfield, Ollivier, and McKee Middle Schools each earned first place in Applied Mechanics & Structures, Cognitive Science, and Behavioral & Social Sciences, respectively. Assistant Superintendent of Curriculum Sarah Dawson said the milestone is just the start.
“Oh this is just the beginning, our students are very excited to move on. I hope their peers will be interested in following in their footsteps. It is a lot of work on their part. They work for many months and a lot of research that goes into it,” Dawson said.
At Greenfield Middle School, students Johana Gomez and Katelynn Gonzalez teamed up on a project called Texture Taker, which took first place in Applied Mechanics & Structures. Their experiment examined how the surface texture of a prize and the magnetic grip of a claw machine can affect the odds of winning.
“In this project, we included three different textures: a grippy, fluffy, and smooth texture. Here we tested them 20 different times for each duck. Afterwards, we imputed the data into a graph to see which texture had a higher success rate,” Gomez said.
Gonzalez described the technology behind the project.
“We used a hummingbird and a microchip to code the claw. It counts down from 10, and once it counts down, the claw activates and closes, and you get to see if you win or not,” Gonzalez said.
At Ollivier Middle School, Raul Martinez earned first place in Cognitive Science with his project Music to Wheels. Martinez tested whether music could improve or hinder an athlete’s performance during a workout by comparing results with and without music.
“For example, I graphed their age and gender. Participant one, without music they got 1.30 miles in a span of 4 minutes. Opposed to with music I saw an increase in 1.50 miles in 4 minutes. There was a .20 improvement while listening to music,” Martinez said.
At McKee Middle School, football player Jahari O’Neal won first place in Behavioral & Social Sciences with a project focused on the importance of stretching before athletic activity. O’Neal said he designed the project with a purpose beyond the science fair.
“I decided to work on this project to bring it to my athletic director. To show to him the data I found, and why they should take our stretching routines more seriously. As many injuries that we have seen over the football season, I believe is due to improper stretching. I feel like this project was needed to bring attention to the importance of it, and why we need it at such a young age,” O’Neal said.
O’Neal said he was not initially enthusiastic about participating in the science fair, but changed his perspective after seeing the impact his project had on his teammates and community.
“If you have the opportunity to do something like this, take a chance. Events like this can lead to future scholarships or even a new passion. It is really great for students to try something like this,” O’Neal said.
The California Science and Engineering Fair will be held April 11 and 12 at Cal Lutheran University in Thousand Oaks.
This story was reported on-air by a journalist and has been converted to this platform with the assistance of AI. Our editorial team verifies all reporting on all platforms for fairness and accuracy.
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