After competing in the regional finals of the prestigious Siemens Competition in Math, Science and Technology last Saturday, two Manhasset high school juniors failed to advance to the national finals, said Thomas Elkins, Manhasset school district coordinator for science, health and technology.
“We’re a little disappointed with the result but happy overall with how the students did,” he said. “It happens sometimes when students compete at a high level like the one in that competition.”
The students, Stephen Lee and Fred Chu, were two of 10 Long Island high school students selected among 96 regional finalists in late October.
They competed against four other regional finalists last Saturday for a spot in the national finals, which will take place in Washington, D.C., on Dec. 5 and 6. Lee and Chu delivered a 12-minute presentation from the high school by teleconference to a panel of scientists assembled at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Following the presentation, panelists peppered the students with questions for 15 minutes.
Elkins observed the presentation but was asked to leave the room for the question and answer portion.
“The presentation went well,” he said. “You could tell it had been well-rehearsed.”
He recounted walking in on Lee and Chu several times over the past couple weeks as they practiced delivering the presentation.
Alison Hueger, the school’s science research specialist, followed up the practice presentations by posing questions as though she were a judge.
But the competition “judges ask questions you can’t anticipate,” Elkins said. “They are Ph.D.s and specialists who ask questions they’re reasonably sure the kids can’t answer. They try to probe the depth of the students’ knowledge.”
Elkins said the students nevertheless “felt they were very prepared” for the judges’ questions.
The students’ work concerned dye-sensitized solar cells, a pigmented material that generates energy when exposed to sunlight. They aimed to show that dye-sensitized solar cells are as effective as silicon cells, another material that stores energy from sunlight, Lee said.
Last year two Manhasset High School seniors, Kimberly Te and Christine Yoo, qualified for the Siemens national finals, having come up with a device able to produce clean energy and clean up oil spills simultaneously.
While they prepared for last Saturday’s presentation, Lee and Chu began conducting research for next year’s competition, they said earlier. Efforts to reach the students after the announcement were unavailing.
