Junior earns superior rating and STEM scholarship at State Science Fair

Junior Remington Holder earned a superior rating for his project “Low Level vs High Level Programming Languages” at the State Science Fair this summer. He was awarded a $3000 STEM scholarship for 4 years at Ohio Northern University for this accomplishment.

At McNicholas, Remy is part of the UC Early IT Program, a member of the Robotics Club, and he works year-round at the technology helpdesk.

Science teacher, Ms. Mary Dennemann, said, “Remington is a phenomenal STEM student who never stops asking questions and digging for answers.”

While Remy has enjoyed computer programming for some time now, more recently he has found an interest in programming languages. His curiosity peaked when he realized that information about the way programming languages might affect the speed of a program was sparse and difficult to find. Much of the information he came across seemed biased and offered little transparency or explanation about the tests used to execute the research. Remy didn’t let this deter him and decided to take matters into his own hands through his Science Fair Project. 

He started by asking “Which programming languages are the fastest and can low-level languages be just as fast as high-level languages?” Then Remy created multiple versions of the same program using different programming languages for each. He put each program through a series of trials to test its speed under different conditions and with different functions. 

At the end of his project, Remy concluded that knowing lots of different programming languages does not offer as much of an advantage as he had thought. “Speed and efficiency come from the person sitting in the chair and how they use a language not necessarily which language they use,” Remy said. “If the programmer does not have the skills to use a certain language, then they are not going to be able to write a fast program.”

This experience has motivated Remy to continue developing his skills as a programmer and solidified his desire to continue working in the STEM field. 

Ms. Dennemann added, “Even as a high school student, I can tell he will be a lifelong learner and problem solver. We are so very proud of him and can't wait to see what he does in the future.”