Long-View Student Wins 1st in the Nation for Mathematics and Wins Team Award for Collaboration at the Science Fair
Yesterday, Thermo Fisher Scientific and Society for Science announced the winners of the Thermo Fisher Scientific Junior Innovators Challenge (Thermo Fisher JIC), the nation’s leading middle school science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) competition.
Tobias (Toby) Lam, representing Long-View Micro School, won the First Place Mathematics Award, as well as the Team Award!
Toby demonstrated exceptional skill and promise in mathematics as evidenced in his project, titled “The Effect of Nintendo’s NES Tetris Theme Music and 28 Hertz High Beta-Frequency Binaural Beats on a 233 Hertz Carrier on Attention Span,” and was awarded First Place in Mathematics. Listen to Toby describe his project here.
Furthermore, Toby’s Finals Week challenge team won the Team Award because they best demonstrated an ability to work together and solve problems through shared decision making, communication and scientific and engineering collaboration.
Exceptional math skills and strong collaboration skills sound exactly like what we are teaching at Long-View Micro School!
“We thought it was such a good testament to Long-View’s education, for Toby to get recognition in math and collaboration.”
Toby was coached by Long-View science teacher Kelly Winchester. He worked on his project for over six months, competing in the Greater Austin Regional Science and Engineering Fair (GARSEF) in February with over 3,000 participants. Based on his results at the regional fair, he was invited to apply to the national competition, Thermo Fisher JIC.
For reference, the top 10% of middle students from ALL regional science fairs in the US are invited to apply to the Thermo Fisher JIC; this year, over 2,000 students from 48 states submitted projects. Out of those projects, 300 submissions were selected as semi-finalists—this was then further narrowed down to 30 finalists.The odds of advancing to the Top 30 of Thermo Fisher JIC are ~0.015%, if you even apply to nationals!
Toby and the other 29 finalists were flown to Washington DC for a weekend of events and competitions. Outside of defending his project to esteemed judges who poured over the projects ahead of time and came with extensive questions, Toby and the other finalists were also observed and evaluated as they worked through collaborative science investigations. Click here to read more about the awards.
Toby’s project was initiated because he is concerned by how hard it can be to focus, especially when he found that adults’ attention spans were four seconds shorter in 2024 than they were in 2000. He noted, “This is a big problem, and the effects have been seen even in classrooms where students have trouble focusing on the teacher.” Toby is also interested in binaural beats, where a slightly different tone is played in each ear, making someone hear an illusion of a pulsing beat. Binaural beats may help people achieve meditative states. As a passionate musician, Toby then wondered if they could help people focus and thus centered his project this year on this issue. Click here to read more about Toby’s project or view his poster here.
Join us in congratulating Toby and everyone that influenced his journey. Additionally, join us in wishing all the best to Toby’s peers at Long-View who are in the process of preparing for the 2026 science fair season with coaching from Long-View teachers John Cooley and Kelly Winchester. Once again, over a third of our student population will bring projects to the Greater Austin Science Fair. More good news may be around the corner!
