Capital Science & Engineering Fair

About the Capital Science & Engineering Fair

The Capital Science & Engineering Fair was established to provide high school students from South Central Wisconsin the opportunity to showcase their research.

With its annual fair to be held February 25, 2012, on the University of Wisconsin - Madison campus, the fair inspires enthusiasm for science and engineering research among Wisconsin students. It provides a support system to assist students as they actively participate in science and engineering endeavors.

Hands-on learning is vitally important for our future scientists. The Capital Science & Engineering Fair provides students a unique opportunity to perform science and engineering and learn from University faculty and staff.

Participants also compete for an opportunity to enter the Badger State Science & Engineering Fair and the Intel International Science and Engineering Fair.

Beginning with the Intel ISEF 2011, each affiliated fair will be assigned a maximum number of projects it may bring to the Intel ISEF 2011. This number is based on a mathematical model that considers the number of high school students at the fair, the number of high schools represented, the high school enrollment population of the territory represented and an estimate of the number of students doing projects that “feed” into the affiliate fair. For the Capital Science & Engineering Fair, the number of projects that can be sent to ISEF 2012 is 2. These can be individual or team projects.

2011 Awards

The 2011 Grand Prize winner was Suman Gunasekaran of James Madison Memorial High School and the Runner Up was Maya Dorje of James Madison Memorial High School.

Intel ISEF 2011 Special Awards

Suman Gunasekaran, a junior at Madison Memorial, won a $3000 First Prize at the International Science & Engineering Fair held in Los Angeles. Specifically, he won an Air Force special award for his project titled Engineering E. coli for Biosynthesis of Hydrocarbons