{"id":50882,"date":"2026-03-17T08:22:59","date_gmt":"2026-03-17T12:22:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.knightcrier.org\/?p=50882"},"modified":"2026-03-24T08:43:51","modified_gmt":"2026-03-24T12:43:51","slug":"changing-the-world-one-cardboard-volcano-at-a-time","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.knightcrier.org\/top-stories\/2026\/03\/17\/changing-the-world-one-cardboard-volcano-at-a-time\/","title":{"rendered":"Changing the World one cardboard volcano at a time"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cWhen people think \u2018science fair\u2019, they think baking soda and vinegar volcanoes,\u201d Junior Pramith Pradeep explained, \u201cbut that\u2019s not what this is.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The Montgomery County Science Research Center (MCSRC) Competition is happening on March 26th at Germantown Academy. For students all over the county, this is their opportunity to show off their scientific interests in a professional setting with expert input. The top five winners from this fair (the top three from grades 9-12 and the top two from grades 6-8) will move on to the regional Delaware Valley Science Fair, which is much more competitive than the county fair, with the number of participants ranging from 900 to 1,000.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Most students have done a science fair project in elementary school, or even in middle school. Many can recall their gymnasiums full of trifolds depicting petri dishes, baking soda and vinegar volcanoes, and jumping beans in plastic bottles. This group of students participating in the MCSRC do much more than that.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cThere are many people with breast cancer, pancreatic cancer, [etc.] and one of the most common types of treatment is using a drug known as anthracycline. These drugs are very high risk, high reward. They\u2019re very effective at eliminating cancer, but they can lead to long term cardiac diseases. What my project aims to do is find an alternative method to detect these heart diseases early because current methods only detect it in late stages,\u201d Pradeep explained. \u201cThe way I\u2019m doing that is I utilize heart ultrasounds and I track geometric features in the heart to do some calculations, and basically postulate whether someone\u2019s at a higher risk or lower risk for heart disease.\u201d<aside>\n    <div class='pullquote sno-pullquote-6a4d6cb0878a6 sno-animate pullquote-shadow'>\n                <div class=\"quotebody\">\n                        <div class='largequote'>&ldquo;<\/div>\n                                    <p class='pullquotetext'>The way I\u2019m doing that is I utilize heart ultrasounds and I track geometric features in the heart to do some calculations, and basically postulate whether someone\u2019s at a higher risk or lower risk for heart disease.\u201d<\/p>\n                            <p class='quotespeaker'>&mdash; Junior, Pramith Pradeep <\/p>\n                        <div class=\"clear\"><\/div>\n        <\/div>\n    <\/div>\n<\/aside>\n<style>\n.sno-pullquote-6a4d6cb0878a6 {\n    display: flex;\n    float: left;\n    margin: 30px 30px 30px 0;\n    width: 50%;\n    border-color: #67c0fc;\n    border-top-width: 5px;\n    border-right-width: 5px;\n    border-bottom-width: 5px;\n    border-left-width: 5px;\n    background-color: #0a1c42;\n}\n.sno-pullquote-6a4d6cb0878a6 p.pullquotetext,\n.sno-pullquote-6a4d6cb0878a6 p.quotespeaker {\n    color: #ffffff !important;\n}\n.sno-pullquote-6a4d6cb0878a6 .pullquotepic {\n    width: 33%;\n    margin-left: 25px;\n}\n.sno-story-body .sno-pullquote-6a4d6cb0878a6 p.pullquotetext {\n    font-size: 22px;\n    line-height: 1.4em;\n}\n.sno-pullquote-6a4d6cb0878a6 .quotebar {\n    background: #0a1c42;\n    flex: 0 0 90px;\n    margin-top: -15px;\n    margin-left: -15px;\n    padding-left: 15px;\n    padding-top: 15px;\n    margin-right: 15px;\n}\n.sno-pullquote-6a4d6cb0878a6 .largequote {\n\tcolor: #67c0fc;\n}\n.sno-pullquote-6a4d6cb0878a6 .quotebody {\n    width: unset;\n}\n<\/style>\n<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">With his research, Pradeep has the opportunity to help the 10-20% of cancer survivors affected by such heart diseases. He has the opportunity to save lives, to help patients, and to make a difference.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Junior Monita Rijal will also be competing in the medical science category.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cGlaucoma is a disease in the eye that builds pressure and makes you go blind. It\u2019s a super big thing across South Asia. One of the issues is that imaging systems [that help identify glaucoma] are really expensive, and in small villages and rural areas, there\u2019s a lack of imaging systems. So, recently, they\u2019ve developed portable fungus imaging, which is a type of imaging used to identify glaucoma, but it\u2019s really preliminary research, and even then there\u2019s still a lack of proper doctors,\u201d Rijal said. \u201cBasically what I [did] is, I got a data set of this portable fungus imaging and I built a machine running model to identify a certain type of glaucoma\u2026 then I 3D printed and built my own portable lungs and I built a front end software. It\u2019s an application that you just open up on your phone. As long as you\u2019re in a dark space, you can look through the lens, turn your light on, look through the lens, look at an eye, and it gives you a preliminary screening.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The people competing in the various science fairs are conducting almost \u201cPhD level\u201d research, according to Pradeep. Across all of Montgomery County, students will compete within their category of choice. From zoology to astronomy, students with a specialization in any topic have the opportunity to offer their contributions to the scientific community.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cI want to go into engineering, so I think [the science fair] is really great for anyone who wants to go into STEM because there\u2019s so many different categories,\u201d Rajal said. \u201cThere\u2019s medical, there\u2019s engineering, there\u2019s environmental, there\u2019s physics, there\u2019s math\u2026 if you have an interest in anything, it allows you to learn more about it and develop a project that, not only looks good for your resume, but also gives you a chance to show off your interest.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Some of the projects presented at fairs such as the MCSRC Competition can lead to actual change and scientific discoveries.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cPeople are doing projects at almost PhD levels, and overall, we\u2019re just changing the world,\u201d Pradeep confessed. \u201cI know that there have been many projects that have led to patents that have led to the curing of diseases, new medical technologies, agricultural technologies.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">For students who love science and who want to change the world, this competition is the perfect opportunity to do just that. This experience could be the next step towards a potential career in science, technology, engineering, or mathematics, but also fosters participation in the scientific community as a whole.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cParticipating in the science fair gives you the basis for more advanced scientific research and studies. Most people, when they think of developing experiments, [think of how] they would have done it in their science classes, but you tend to learn a lot more about how the professionals do it,\u201d Pradeep claimed. \u201cI find [participating in the Science Fair] very interesting, and also, it\u2019s just really rewarding that you\u2019re able to do your own research and you\u2019re able to get an award for it. It\u2019s amazing that we can get this kind of recognition.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">And along with such high level projects comes high level experts.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cI know I found a lot of great mentors [through my science fair project] that I plan to take advice from for a very long time, even through undergrad and grad school,\u201d Pradeep explained.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Join me in rooting for our MCSRC competition participants from North Penn as they continue to accomplish amazing things and show off their scientific achievements!<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>\u201cWhen people think \u2018science fair\u2019, they think baking soda and vinegar volcanoes,\u201d Junior Pramith Pradeep explained, \u201cbut that\u2019s not what this is.\u201d The Montgomery County Science Research Center (MCSRC) Competition is happening on March 26th at Germantown Academy. For students all over the county, this is their opportunity to show off their scientific interests in&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":50962,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[54,11],"tags":[],"staff_name":[1539],"class_list":["post-50882","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-features","category-top-stories","staff_name-alexandra-kim"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.knightcrier.org\/app-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50882","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.knightcrier.org\/app-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.knightcrier.org\/app-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.knightcrier.org\/app-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.knightcrier.org\/app-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=50882"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.knightcrier.org\/app-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50882\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":50963,"href":"https:\/\/www.knightcrier.org\/app-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50882\/revisions\/50963"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.knightcrier.org\/app-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/50962"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.knightcrier.org\/app-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=50882"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.knightcrier.org\/app-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=50882"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.knightcrier.org\/app-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=50882"},{"taxonomy":"staff_name","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.knightcrier.org\/app-json\/wp\/v2\/staff_name?post=50882"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}