Powell Middle School students Calvin Opps and Curtis Muecke won first and second place in their respective divisions in the virtual state science fair on March 7.

Opps, a seventh grader, won first place in the junior category of computer sciences. Opps also won second place in the junior category in American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics. It was awarded by AIAA Rocky Mountain — which was one of the fair’s sponsors — to the best individual project related to aerospace. Muecke, who is in eighth grade, won second place for the junior category of biochemistry/cellular and molecular biology.

In order to compete in the state science fair, Opps and Muecke had to qualify in regionals in January, which meant they had to begin their project months ago. Opps began working on his project in November and Muecke started in December. This was Opps’ first time competing in both regionals and state science fair but success has run in his family.

“It was my first time but my brother made it to state and won state,” Opps said. “So I kind of knew what was happening [in the competition].”

Both Opps and Muecke chose topics that caught their attention and enjoyed seeing where their findings would lead them.

“I know that in today’s society problems like acid reflux and other gastrointestinal diseases are a big problem and threat to a lot of people,” Muecke said. “So I was wondering, is there a way that we could help people with diseases like that by changing what they eat? And turns out, yes, there’s very, very clear ways on how to do that.”

Muecke used homemade extracts to test the impact of certain foods on the body’s gastrointestinal system.

For Opps, whose project focused on artificial intelligence in self-driving cars, the most interesting aspect was that intelligence will vary much like with humans.

“The percentage that the AI learned by that then goes up isn’t the same,” Opps said. “So it’s really close to human’s intelligence, because sometimes there’s something misleading when you expect it to go to 54%, which is exactly like a human. Well, not exactly human, but it’s like a human.”

Opps conducted his experiment using free downloadable AI software. 

Muecke plans to continue competing at the high school level while Opps is unsure if he will finish out his middle school science fair career.