Sophomore Max Bhatti releases a weather balloon holding his science fair experiment and watches as it floats into the sky. As it rises, a Geiger–Müller tube collects particle data and measurements for his LA County Science and Engineering Fair project.
“My science fair project is about developing better cosmic ray shielding for astronauts in space to protect against radiation,” Bhatti said. “When I was brainstorming for my project I went through a hundred or so ideas, and this one was appealing because it had never been done before. You can’t Google the answer, and it’s a current topic of research related to aerospace and material science.”
Bhatti began participating in the science fair after finding out about it in eighth grade. His first science fair project involved an engineering evaluation of ornithopter flight characteristics, which was nationally ranked as a finalist at the Intel International Science and Engineering Fair after moving on from the LA County Science Fair and California Science and Engineering Fair.
For his experiment, Bhatti constructed a payload and attached it to a weather balloon in order to collect data from outer space.
After collecting data, Bhatti retrieves his experiment from the ground to process the data. At home, he uses computer simulations on particle physics to compare his data.
The 69th Annual Los Angeles County Science and Engineering Fair will be held at the Pasadena Convention Center from March 28-30. Participants who move on will present their projects at the 68th Annual California Science and Engineering Fair.
Afterwards, finalists will present their findings at the Intel International Science and Engineering Fair in Phoenix, Arizona from May 12-17.
“I like building things and it’s not every day you get to do something like this,” Bhatti said. “It’s the perfect excuse to have a lot of fun doing stuff that you wouldn’t otherwise be able to do.”
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