The 65th Annual RGV Regional Fair will be held February 14-15th hosted by the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley at the Edinburg Campus.
The RGV Regional Science and Engineering Fair is very excited to announce that one of our Thermo Fisher Scientific Junior Innovators Challenge competitors has won the Broadcom Coding with Commitment Award at the national level.
Gary Allen Montelongo, 14, La Joya, Texas, won the $10,000 Broadcom Coding with Commitment ® Award for combining expert STEM knowledge and passion for helping or improving one’s community through coding. In his project, Gary used his coding and engineering skills to build models of train suspension systems to learn how the vibrations produced by springs and the weight distribution of the train cars contribute to train derailment.
More information about Gary and his project is found here:
https://www.societyforscience.org/jic/2024-student-finalists/gary-montelongo/
Students who place 1st or 2nd in a category are eligible to be advanced to the Texas State Science and Engineering Fair. The students and sponsors should check on the project status frequently and watch for notifications of items to be addressed. Students will have a very short time to clear any SRC issues and upload their required information before the competition.
The RGV Regional Science and Engineering Fair will be an in-person competition:
* Judges will conduct interviews of student competitors on Saturday, February 15, 2025 from 9am to noon. Students will be interviewed individually or as a group by Regional Fair Judges. Top Senior Division (high school) winners will be eligible for Grand Champion awards as in years past and the opportunity to advance directly to the Regeneron International Science and Engineering Fair in Columbus, Ohio. The week-long event will be held May 10-16, 2025.
* Our regional competition will use the 21 categories that the state and international competitions will be using, and those are available in STEM Wizard for students to select. The categories may not match the categories you used at your campus or district fair, and students will need to select the most appropriate category and confirm that category. Students in each category are eligible for category awards and special awards as in the past.
* 1st-2nd place winners from each category in both the Junior Division (middle school) and Senior Division (high school) are eligible to advance to the Texas Science & Engineering Fair (state-level competition), which will be an in-person competition. The Texas Science and Engineering Fair will be held March 28-29, 2025, in College Station, Texas on the Texas A&M University campus.
* The top four Senior Division (high school projects) from our regional competition will advanced to the 2025 Regeneron International Science & Engineering Fair (ISEF) in Columbus, Ohio. The week-long event will be held May 10-16, 2025.
If you need assistance with STEM Wizard or RGV RSEF registration, please contact tim.sears@utrgv.edu and our team can assist you.
About Our Fair
The Rio Grande Valley Regional Science and Engineering Fair (RGVRSEF) takes place at the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley (UTRGV) in February every year. Participants come from the Rio Grande Valley region. All participating students are required to register their projects through the STEM Wizard registration system and follow all the Regeneron International Science and Engineering Fair (ISEF) Rules with the following exception: instead of ISEF forms, middle schoolers (Junior Division) will submit the Safety and Consent Form for Texas Middle School Science Fair Students. Awards are given for 1st - 5th place winners in each category for each division as well as special awards.
The Senior Division is a competitive event for 9th-12th graders. 1st - 2nd place winners advance to the Texas Science and Engineering Fair in March. Typically, four projects in the Senior Division are selected as Grand Champion winners and advance to the Regeneron ISEF competition in May.
The Junior Division of the RGV RSEF is a competitive event for 6th-8th graders. The top 10% of Junior Division projects in each category are nominated for the Thermo Fisher Scientific Junior Innovators Challenge. 1st - 2nd place winners advance to the Texas Science and Engineering Fair in March.
CHECK BACK FREQUENTLY TO GET UPDATE INFORMATION AND LINKS TO INFORMATION.
Dates and Reminders
Check on your Project in STEM Wizard daily until it is approved by the SRC for competition.
Good luck to all of our winners!!
