Science may not be the first thing that comes to students’ minds when they think of state, but junior Jasmine DeMeyer took her spot as the only Spartan that made it. After placing second at regionals and being designated as a first state alternate, DeMeyer was told that she would be representing West after a state qualifying peer dropped their position.

DeMeyer recalled that it was an unexpected opportunity, “I was kind of surprised, but excited”.

On April 5, DeMeyer was accompanied by her physics teacher, Mr. Zach Armstrong, to participate in the first day of the Colorado Science and Engineering Fair at the Colorado State University student center. DeMeyer was glad to have a supervisor with her because “it felt nice to have support” going into the competition.

As a high school student, she participated among 158 other high schoolers in the senior division under the physics category. For her presentation, DeMeyer prepared a simple explanation of her experiment that was easier for people without a physics background to understand. “When a wave occurs in a tube, the antinode of the wave occurs just outside the end of the tube, so my goal was to figure out how far outside the tube the antinode occurs in terms of the diameter.”  Although the project began as a question posed by Armstrong, DeMeyer enjoyed pursuing her project based around her interest in waves.

Not only did state give DeMeyer an opportunity to share her research, but she also got to learn from other students in Colorado. “It was cool to see other projects people have done, and the creativity among my peers,” she stated.