The Paw Print

By Charles Zimmer, Staff Photographer & Chief Digital Officer

At the City Science Fair on Mar. 14, 17 Payton students showcased their research projects.  of those 17 students, nine of them were able to win awards and move up to the Illinois Junior Academy of Science Competition. The Paw Print was able to interview two of these winners, Yuxin Shi and John Falcigila.

Yuxin’s project was a meta-analysis of genetic diseases, which are known as tyrosinemia (HT1) and alkaptonuria (AKU), with both of them playing a role in the metabolism of the protein tyrosine. She said that she joined the science fair because she already started working on her project at the beginning of the school year, and thought it would be interesting and fun to submit it for the science fair. Yuxin said that she did this project because both HT1 and HAKU are very understudied diseases, despite the fact that a fair amount of people have them, with rough estimates stating that one in a 100,000 people have HT1, and that one in 250,000 people have AKU. Leading up to the science fair, Yuxin utilized Python coding to generate genes, which can be used for future clinical trials, improving the quality of life for many people. Although she was very happy with her project, she states that the project was somewhat rushed and that she wished she spent more time with the results. She concluded the interview by stating that she planned to participate in the science fair next year, possibly expanding on her previous project or something relating to vaccine development.

John’s project was a dynamic robotic manipulator for materials research. He decided to enter the science fair because he built the robotic arm last summer to supplement his friend’s project relating to a neurolink sensor that would record brain waves, but decided to join this science fair because he could not be in the same one as his friend. In terms of his process, John designed a robotic arm and wrote a paper around it instead of finding a problem and creating a solution. In preparation for the science fair, he did a lot of coding, testing, redesigning, mechanical engineering and servos, as well as reading articles and talking to other science fair people when it came to writing his paper. Even though he was happy with the results, he said that he wished he made his system more complicated and practical, such as adding more motors and making a 3D-printed design. He ended the interview by saying that he had plans to join the science fair next year, either remaking the robotic arm or doing a project for his internship at DCI next summer.

Both of these projects and the people working on them are a testament to the academic commitment of the Grizzly Nation.