Three of the four grand prize awards captured at the Elementary Regional Science Fair held in early February were won by Plano ISD students. Karthik Rajagopal, representing Schimelpfenig middle school won the grand prize award at the sixth grade level. The regional fair this year was hosted by several Independent School Districts (ISD), viz., Allen, Carrollton/Farmers Branch, Garland, Mesquite, McKinney, Plano and Richardson. Kudos to Karthik on his accomplishment and wishing him well on his future science endeavors. Karthik is also an active participant over the last two years in Samvid after-school science and math classes.
Samvid's after-school activities help students in honing their science and math presentation skills and get them prepared to do well in regional and national competitions .
Science fair in Dallas is very competitive and, as always, Plano ISD students rose to the top and showed what amazing problem solvers and scientists they are, Mary Swinton, elementary science coordinator, said. The judges were very impressed with how each project was so well thought out and explained. Our students are very fortunate to be in classrooms where science is valued and they are given learning experience that help them develop the scientific processes and skills needed to compete successfully.Source: PISD Website Dallas Region Science Fair 2013.
Karthik's presentation was titled: "Towering Inferno". He addressed the challenge posed by reflective radiation from the neighboring high rise buildings on the Nasher sculpture garden. Karthik, in his own words about his idea for the project and his solution.
Problem:What coating on glass helps diffuse light the most? What incident angle would cause the most intense glare?
In Downtown Dallas there is a new high rise condominium called the museum tower. It is right across the Nasher sculpture garden. The glare from the museum tower is ruining some of the irreplaceable sculptures. I wanted to understand how effective coating the glass with commonly available materials might be in reducing the glare by reducing the glare by reducing the light. I used three materials to try and reduce the glare, they were, frosted glass, suntan lotion and clear nail polish.
What I did was I got four pieces of glass, I applied the different coatings to each of the different pieces of glass. Then I held it up. Then I put a flashlight in particular angles and took pictures of the light that was reflected on the table. Then I put it into this software called Image J and that measured the light strength.
The coating that diffused and reduced the glare the most was the frosted glass coating, followed by sun tan, followed by nail polish even though the nail polish and sun tan were about the same the whole time. The sun tan lotion had a slight advantage over the nail polish.