There were a few big science fair winners last week, including one sophomore who took home the grand prize.

“We had a local science fair here at DCHS and those who placed went on to Tennessee Tech and presented their projects at their 67th Annual Cumberland Plateau Regional Science and Engineering Fair,” Biology and Physical Science teacher Lauren Ferrell explained. “They presented their projects and did really well.”

Sophomore Chloe Boyd received second place overall for her project was called “The Hole Truth.” It focused on how either keeping a flag in or out increases her chance of making a golf putt. Through her experiment, Chloe said that taking the flag out, increases her chance of making a putt by 7.6 percent. Chloe also received the Science Fair Grand Prize and a $1,000 scholarship.

Sophomores Olivia Minton and Kinley Niehuus received second place in Plant and Animal Biology for their “Garden Grooves” project. Their entry used the effect of sound waves and music to see how it affected plant growth. The used Spotify hooked to a speaker, to see how the vibrations caused plants to be stimulated, causing it to grow more.

Junior DCHS students David Wheeler and Jaxon Kleparek received 1st place in Computer Science for their project, “AI versus Reality.” The pair took images from Google and had AI recreate them, then put all the images into a survey to see if people could tell the difference between them. They reported that on average people could tell the difference between real and AI, but some were difficult.