When Asa Gangjee and Suman Muppavarappu received the Grand Award for Aerospace Engineering at the Science and Engineering Fair of Houston, both juniors were ecstatic. After over 900 hours of work in research and development, the two were confident that their project would impress the judges.
Every February, thousands of students from across Houston gather at the SEFH to present a research project in 19 categories ranging from Animal Science to Systems Software. The judges, usually experts in their fields, choose a select few projects to advance to the second round of judging, in which they select the winners for each category. The winners then advance to the International Science and Engineering Fair, where regional winners from around the world compete. Of the 1200 projects this year, only 12 were selected.
Gangjee and Muppavarapu’s project applies regenerative cooling to aerospike rocket engines. Although more efficient than the standard bell engine, the aerospike engine has not been used since its invention in the 1960s, in part due to the cooling complications associated with its unorthodox geometry. The project attempts to develop a working prototype of an aerospike engine using metal 3D printing.
“I looked back at the aerospike engine because I thought it was interesting to experiment with exotic engine types and see if you could prove that they’re actually feasible in the industry currently,” said Gangjee. After identifying the critical issues with aerospike design, Gangjee brainstormed solutions.
The two began working together this year in Engineering Capstone, a course where groups of 2-4 students pursue independent design projects. Muppavarappu’s skill in electrical engineering and computer science complements Gangjee’s specialty in the mechanical aspects.
“We work together really well because we have a good personality balance,” Muppavarappu said. “Both of us work hard, and we get things done on time.”
The duo faced countless obstacles during the design process, especially without previous research on aerospike engines. Still, their main issues were budget-related. Without access to industry-level resources — including simulation software and high-power motors — the two had to improvise within their $1500 budget.
“We’re one of eight groups ever to create an aerospace rocket engine on the scale we did, and the next closest group in funding to us had half a million dollars,” Gangjee said.
Dealing with high pressure, flammable gases that exceeded the speed of sound, testing the rocket introduced safety concerns including explosions and shrapnel — metal fragments thrown out by an explosion.
“We did everything in our power to design high safety factors to keep both ourselves and others safe,” Gangjee said. “That’s part of the reason we put so much time in. I’ve done about 400 or 500 hours of simulation making sure everything’s optimized and we’re not having any large pressure spikes.”
In Medicine and Health, the most competitive category, sophomore Nia Shetty won first place. After competing in SEFH for the past four years, her Grand Award in Life Sciences this year earned her a ticket to ISEF, fulfilling a dream she had held onto since seventh grade.
In her project, she identified the limitations of MELD, the system that doctors use to allocate livers for transplants.
“One in every 10 organs goes wasted, and thousands die every year because of the outdated system,” Shetty said. “For a transplant, you should look at recipient, donor and operative factors to see the chance of success, but MELD only looks at the recipient.”
To solve this issue, she trained different AI machine learning algorithms to predict 90 day post-transplant mortality. She then created a mathematical formula called PRESTO, or Predictive Evaluation for Survival and Transplant Outcomes, designing it into a desktop application for clinician use.
For Shetty, the most challenging part lay in manipulating the data that she trained the AI models on. After receiving access to a data set from the United Network for Organ Sharing, she spent multiple hours per week cleaning and understanding the data set, which represented all transplants that took place in the United States from 1985 to 2022 — 341,208 patients.
SEFH victors qualify for the International Science and Engineering Fair, which will be held in Columbus, Ohio, in May. Looking ahead to the weeklong convention, Shetty’s main goal is to immerse herself in the unique experience.
“There’s so many students from India, Africa, Australia and other countries. There’s one day solely dedicated to meeting other students and exchanging your country’s pins,” Shetty said. “But also I’ll be locked in from here until May to give myself the best chance of winning an award.”
