May 24, 2005 News Media Release

Austin Area Students Win Awards at Prestigious Intel Science and Engineering Fair

Megan Marie Pendleton of Vista Ridge High School in Cedar Park won a second place award at the Intel International Science and Engineering Fair and two students from LBJ High School in Austin finished fourth in a math team project at this prestigious competition held this month in Phoenix. The event brought together more than 1,400 students representing over 40 countries in the world's largest pre-college science competition.

Pendleton, 16, won second place and $200 in the Best Project for Optics and Photonics Engineering special award category for her project that showed how to improve image quality in a telescope. Megan photographed objects in deep space with a homemade telescope and Web camera. By using the diameter of a star in the image to determine the degree of focus, she programmed the telescope with a computer and math software as well as a motor connected to the telescope to focus the telescope automatically based on the degree of focus.

LBJ High School students Edward Fu Schmerling, 16, and Jennifer Fu Schmerling, 17, teamed with Sarah Daphna Spikes, 17, of Seymour High School in Seymour to win fourth place and $500 in the math team project by using mathematical proofs and analysis to find the most efficient way to break down graphs into sub-graphs. The Schmerlings, who are brother and sister, met Spikes at a math camp last summer and competed together. The team analyzed how an electrical power system can be charted on graphs. By breaking down graphs into smaller units, each section of the power system can be monitored more efficiently.

The Austin area students advanced to this prestigious competition after winning Best of Fair projects at the Austin Energy Regional Science Festival - the largest science festival in Texas. The International Science and Engineering Fair was founded in 1950 and has helped popularize science education in our country by offering scholarships, tuition grants, internships and scientific field trips to students - many who have gone on to become Nobel Prize and National Medal of Science winners.

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