Schools

West Hempstead Student's Turbine Work Continues to Win Awards

West Hempstead High School junior Chris McAvoy earns three awards at Long Island Science and Engineering Fair.

Whether working on local history or advanced science, junior Chris McAvoy continues to bring pride to his school and community with his brains, talent and dedication.

On March 19, McAvoy competed in the second round of the Long Island Science and Engineering Fair, where he won three awards for his latest project, "Biomimetic Wind Turbine Blade Power Analysis: Airfoil Design." In his research, McAvoy explored the application of airfoil shapes from nature as wind turbine blade shapes.

He showed the LISEF judges how his testing revealed that wind turbines designed using biomimetic shapes, those that make use of evolutionary engineering through nature, can be more cost effective and productive than ones using conventional blades. (Presently, testing of the vellela sail, the humpback whale flipper, the Norway maple key and the dragonfly wing has yielded intriguing results, he says.)

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 McAvoy presented a similar project, titled "Biomimetic Wind Turbine Blade Design Efficiency," at the Long Island at the Science Teachers Association of New York's State Science Congress in Albany. There, he competed against other regional finalists and had to explain his work and field questions from a panel of scientists and engineers. He finished in the top 10 and received an Award for Excellence in Engineering, Mathematics, and Computing.

McAvoy also won the Yale Science and Engineering Inc. 2012 award for Most Outstanding 11th Grade Exhibit in Computer Science, Engineering, Physics or Chemistry and the I-SWEEEP Outstanding Sustainability Award. The National Society of Professional Engineers honored him with the Innovative Engineering Award and LISEF has chosen him to represent Long Island at the I-SWEEEP 2012 International Sustainable World Project Olympiad in Texas in early May.

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Outside of the field of science, McAvoy has also dedicated his time to studying West Hempstead's local history. Working with the West Hempstead Historical Society, he delivered a fascinating presentation last year that traced some of the community's most important past events. You can read more about it .

Do you know of a young person from Malverne or West Hempstead who is doing great things and deserves to be recognized? Send an email to Tara.Conry@Patch.com for consideration in our Whiz Kids column.


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