By Abby Painovich Regional Science Fair took place February 3, 2018, on the University of Minnesota Duluth campus. Nineteen students from Hinckley-Finlayson went and among these nineteen was Katelyn France. Katelyn France is a senior here at HFHS and has been participating in the science fair for four years. This year, she has, for the third time, been awarded a fully paid trip to Pennsylvania to participate in the International Science & Engineering Fair. This is just one of the many awards she has received over her years of participating in science fairs. This year at the regional science fair, Katelyn achieved four awards. The first of which being that she placed first out of all of the Regional Senior High participants. By doing so, she was presented with an opportunity to partake in the Tristate Science and Humanities Symposium in Minneapolis. Additional awards won by Katelyn France included the Yale Science & Engineering Association Award, the Beta Lambda Psi Award that is presented to the most empowering female and first place Medicine and Health Science. She will also be attending the 2018 State Science & Engineering Fair, an online science fair called NAISEV, as well as the International Science & Engineering Fair that will take place this coming May in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Katelyn is overcome with excitement at the idea of attending the International Science & Engineering Fair as she tells us, “this is like the Olympics of science fair. I'm so proud to be going in representing our school for a feat that no one has ever accomplished before.” Katelyn’s science fair career started as a freshman with a petty project on laundry detergent. Over the past three years, however, she has been working on an immense and more advanced project with the advisement of Dr. Cynthia Welsh. She has been designing a “system of QR code medical bracelets and a connected Bluetooth carrying case.” Katelyn has proven her bracelets are an exceptional way to obtain information for assistance in medical emergencies through performing time trial experiences. Dr. Cynthia Welsh is a biology teacher at Cloquet Middle School, but also holds the title of the American Indian Regional Science Fair Director. She has been Katelyn’s mentor for the past three years and upon meeting her knew that she was “a positive energy force that spreads happiness wherever she goes.” She has had the opportunity to see Katelyn grow as a scientist and as a person as she states that, “Katelyn has shown remarkable ingenuity, creativity, and passion for science and engineering. I have greatly enjoyed watching her grow as an inventor and scientist. From the start, Katelyn has been a go-getter, it seems doing science research has helped her persist in difficult tasks with a never give up- positive attitude.” In the near future, Katelyn will continue her project as a Collegiate research project as she will be attending UMD next year. After her invention has been perfected, she hopes to take her project to the next level. She hopes to present her bracelets on the show Shark Tank and form a deal with one of the famous Sharks. By doing this, Katelyn says it will, “help me get a business perspective with my project or to continue working to sell my bracelets on my own.” With an optimistic view, she is striving to become the “gold standard in medical bracelets like Steve Jobs is for technology.” “I do this project because I truly love science. It's through this project that I've found what I want to do with my life: help others. With my bracelets, I hope to be able to save hundreds of lives,” is what Katelyn responded with when asked about her motivations behind pursuing her project. She is thoroughly excited with the idea of her future and what it holds but would like to remind beginning science fair participants that she didn’t start out where she is now. The key to success, as stated by Katelyn, is hard work, determination and “finding something you're genuinely interested in.” After all, “science is definitely a marathon and not a sprint,” says Katelyn.
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