After cruising through days of engineering enigmas, science stumpers and
mathematical mysteries, a 14-year-old car aficionado earned the top
award at the second annual Broadcom Math, Applied Science, Technology
and Engineering for Rising Stars, or MASTERS, competition.
In a project he called “Spare the Environment, Spoiler the Car: The
Effect of Rear Spoilers on Drag and Lift,” Gilmartin studied how
different sizes and shapes of spoilers change the amount of drag that
cars experience. He built a six-foot wind tunnel in his house and tested
various combinations of model cars and hand-carved wooden spoilers,
tests that ultimately told him that some kinds of rear spoilers on SUVs
may ease drivers’ pain at the pump.
This year's crop of finalists also included 13-year-old twin brothers —
Shashank Dholakia and Shishir Dholakia of Santa Clara, Calif. — who
tracked the movements of two stars in the sky; a 14-year-old surfer from
Hebron, Conn. — Maura Clare Oei — who developed a way to capture
energy from waves; and a 13-year-old Texas rancher — Paige Gentry of
San Angelo — who had a run-in with a rabid skunk in her hen house. After
tinkering around with various types of skunk bait that could eventually
be spiked with a rabies vaccine, Gentry discovered that skunks like
chicken best.
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