By Michelle Sklar

Los Altos resident and St. Nicholas Catholic School eighth-grader Brandon Angelo earned top honors at the Synopsys Santa Clara County Science Fair March 12-13.

He won second place in the physics category; first place honors and a $50 cash prize from Silicon Soft; first place overall from the U.S. Air Force judges; and first place overall from the U.S. Navy judge.

Brandon’s project, titled “Wing Wars,” was designed to test how different airfoils respond to varying wind conditions. He designed and built three different wing cross sections and tested them in a wind tunnel that he also constructed himself.

“I knew for about a year that I wanted to create a project involving aeronautics,” Angelo said, “because all of the eighth-grade projects for the school science fair have to involve physics.”

Since the project did so well at the St. Nicholas School Science Fair, Angelo decided to enter “Wing Wars” at the county science fair sponsored by Synopsys. “My question going into the experiment was to learn whether a single, double or stepped airfoil would perform best - have the most lift under various wind conditions,” he said.

Angelo credits his St. Nicholas science teacher, Deborah Bodony, with helping him conceive his project.

“I guess interest in technology and taking apart and building things sort of runs in my family,” he said. He pointed out that his maternal grandfather was a pioneer in the nascent field of electronics, developing India’s first automated fire alarm system, for which he received a patent.

Michelle Sklar is the public relations coordinator for St. Nicholas School.