By April-Joy McCann
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Sophomores Viola Mocz and Jonathan Teraoka were pleasantly surprised when their project was the only one from Hawaii selected out of over 1,541 projects submitted to participate in the regional competition of the Siemens Competition in Math, Science and Technology. The competition was hosted at the California Institutes of Technology (CAL TECH) from Nov. 4 -5, where the pair earned a bronze medal and the title of Siemens Scholar.
“When people asked where we were from and how old we were they were like ‘wow.’ So I guess we put on a really good impression on other people (at the competition),” stated Mocz.
The competition is put on annually by the College Board and is designed to recognize talent from a young age, encouraging high school students who are willing to challenge themselves through science research. Students submit the abstract from their science project where it is read over and judged without bias, as the College Board does not read their names. The competitors are then narrowed down to semi-finalist entries and if selected, become one of five teams or five individual competitors recognized as regional finalists. Winners from the six regional competitions are to move on to compete in the national competition in December.
Mocz and Teraoka were one of the five teams that competed in their regional competition for a total of 15 people. At CAL TECH, the team presented their project and a display board as well as answered questions during a 14 minute questioning on their project. “It really shows that these students are really taking their own initiative to participate in other programs not just locally but nationally,” explained Science Fair Coordinator Nel Venzon, who encouraged the pair to enter in the competition.
Mocz was familiar with this competition because both of her older siblings had entered in the past. Mocz and Teraoka’s project was based on Mocz’s science fair project last year on Evolutionary Game and Graph Theory, something her siblings introduced her to. It is a mathematical method for analyzing calculated circumstances in situations such as games, or a person’s success based upon the choices of others and studying how graphs affect evolution of a population. “(This) can be applied to anything such as networking, studying diseases, language and many other things that involve communications,” explained Mocz.
However, Mocz noticed that it had not been used for artificial vision. By using the program she created, they tested more graphs and found out that they could hold a memory of an image, which could be applied to artificial vision. To do this, Mocz needed Teraoka’s help. “Originally it was her project but she didn’t do it with artificial vision. She just wanted to see if her program could see. She wanted to take it to the next level for the competition and that’s when she came to me,” explained Teraoka.
Along with winning the title of Siemens Scholar after a fierce round of regional competition, the two also earned a $1,000 scholarship each. “(The competitors) were just as good, they were equally brilliant and they were all different types of science … It really was anybody’s game,” announced Teraoka.
Although Mocz and Teraoka didn’t win at regionals, they gained unique experiences. “Even though we haven’t won, even though we haven’t made it to nationals, making it to regionals was victory itself. We’ve already won so much … I don’t have anything to complain about,” expressed Teraoka.
After this experience, Teraoka is unsure if he will pursue science as a career, but Mocz is certain it is the field she wants to go into.
