Secondary students showcased their science skills yesterday at Saltus Grammar School’s inaugural science fair.

More than 20 individual and group projects were on display at the Alumni Hall, covering biology, chemistry, physics, psychology, robotics, computing and engineering.

Harshith Kayam, who is in his final year at Saltus, helped organise the fair and also created the laser-cut prizes.

He told The Royal Gazette that he wanted to “inspire kids to enter Stem” (science, technology, engineering and maths).

Because he is very passionate about science, he also wanted to inspire others to see the beauty in the world the same way he does.

“Given the way the world is going, science is a very important discipline,” he said.

“It’s very important for students to understand scientific methods and ask insightful questions about the world.”

Year 9 student Jackie Fielder presented a MaKey MaKey fruit piano, after researching ways to source power from food with her group members Stella Griffin and Kara Dallas.

“When you touch a fruit, it plays a sound,” she said, adding that she wrote the programme for the project herself.

Magnus Henneberger, a fellow Year 9 student, showcased a project on microbeads, highlighting the problem they pose by extracting the beads from certain products.

He said he was inspired by American environmental group Plastic Tides, who made him an ambassador for Bermuda last year.

Using Lego Mindstorms, Christopher Adderley, a Year 7 student, and his group member Clark Jeffrey created a robotic cat that behaves like a real cat.

He said it becomes startled and backs away when hearing sounds, responds to touch and pictures a sun on its display when it senses light.

Some of the other projects looked at how colours make people feel different emotions, how gender affects memory, the growth rate of marine algae and how lava lamps work.

Holograms and 3-D printing were also showcased and students were treated to a demonstration of a virtual reality head-mounted display.

According to computer science teacher Steve Young, Oculus Rift enables interaction with the environment through a combination of virtual reality and Leap Motion technology.

“It’s immersive technology,” Mr Young said. “I’d really like to use it in science. I’m trying to get a couple of kids involved in this.”

He explained that it is possible to swim under the ocean, visit the pyramids and travel through the human body using the “cutting-edge technology”.

“We’ve got software and the next step is to make our own applications,” he said, adding that he hopes to eventually make the technology accessible to all students.

Kelly Reeves, head of science and psychology at Saltus, said: “We’ve always wanted to do a science fair to allow students to be creative and enable them to practice their scientific skills.

“It’s amazing. The students have been fantastic. They’ve gone above and beyond what we expected. The science team has also been amazing.”

But she added that this year was a trial event and that they hope to make it bigger and better next year.

The projects were judged before secondary students were able to view the exhibits from 1.40pm to 3.40pm. At 4pm, parents were invited and prizes were awarded at 5.15pm.