Welcome to Carolyn Usry's Stem Portfolio

Hello! My name is Carolyn Usry and I am a student of the class of 2017 at Roland Park Country School. I take part in the RPCS STEM Institute. I have been exploring the world of science, technology, engineering and mathematics throughout my high school career. In eighth grade, I took part in the Siemens We Can Change the World Challenge by analyzing fungi in order to stop erosion. In high school, I took four semesters of STEM classes. The courses covered all aspect of STEM from space fight to hyperbolic geometry. Along with STEM, I studied biology, physics, chemistry, and computer science.

During the summer of 2014, I interned with Mitigation Management MRG. With the Atlanta based company, I studied Georgia watersheds and the environmental impact of surrounding cities and farms. Along with hands on environmental work, I researched the America Gives More Act of 2015 and designed a data imput program.

Stem IA -- Seasonal Change: I created a Scrath program to analyze how abrivitive cover, H20 temperature and pH affects dissolved oxygen of streams. The Scratch program allows the user to input data through sliders that give a finite range of values.

Stem IA -- Short Term Memory: I completed a test on 15 students to see if letter or color sequences were more accessible for the short-term memory to hold in comparison to a combination of letters and colors.

Stem IIA -- Mars Rover: Over the course, I learned a wide variety of approaches to using the robots sensors and capabilities to execute different tasks under program control. My challenge was to apply all I had learned to simulate a landing and traversal of marsian territory. The design dessions are sumarized in the attached PowerPoint presentation. I also created a Scratch simulation to analyze the magnetic field.

Stem IB -- Euclidean Spherical and Hyberbolic Geometry: I wrote an essay to compared and contrasted the geometries to analyze how all geometries can be correct though they are drastically different. I also worked to solve a optical illusion "The Seven Bridges of Konigsberg. The attached PowerPoint presentation shows my teams efforts.

Stem IIB -- Reasearch Seminar: With a team, I created a working suncreen. My challenge was to follow cost restraints and chemical restraints to build a suncreen from scratch. The design dessions are sumarized in the attached PowerPoint presentation. I also attempted to make formula which melts within paint to minimalize toxic run off from snowsalt. The design dessions are sumarized in the attached PowerPoint.