Pasadena Student Wins Top Engineering Award at County Science Fair

A Pasadena student from Polytechnic School has earned top honors at the 75th Annual Los Angeles County Science and Engineering Fair with an innovative safety device.

Cavon Hajimiri won first place in the Engineering Applications (B) category of the Senior Division for his project titled “A Wearable Low-Cost Radar-Based Early Warning System for Pedestrians.”

The prestigious countywide competition, held March 9-10 at the Shrine Auditorium and Expo Hall in Los Angeles, featured approximately 1,150 students in grades 6-12 from more than 140 schools across Los Angeles County.

Hajimiri’s project was among several standout entries that earned recognition in various categories of the fair, which is divided into Senior (high school) and Junior (middle school) divisions.

The top winners from the Senior Division included Zichen Wei from The Webb Schools in Claremont, who took the Sweepstakes Award and was designated as an International Science and Engineering Fair (ISEF) representative. In the Junior Division, Willow Wehage from Sierra Madre Middle School won the Sweepstakes award.

Neil Hu from Temple City High School also earned an ISEF designation for his project titled “Pioneering Ultrafine Particle Prevention Technology in Internal Combustion Engine Vehicles: Investigating the Pressure Release Valve.” Hu also won first place in the category of Environmental Management in the Senior Division.

Another local winner was Mingfei Xu of South Pasadena High School, who secured first place in the Engineering Research category for his project on “Multi-Directional and mode oscillation energy collectors with cross double branch beams design.”

The top 1st and 2nd place winners from each category are invited to participate in the California State Science & Engineering Fair scheduled for April 12-13 in Thousand Oaks. ISEF designees will receive a chaperoned fully paid trip to the 2025 Regeneron International Science & Engineering Fair in Columbus, Ohio, May 10-16.

A complete list of all category and special award winners is available at lascifair.org, and the virtual awards ceremony can be viewed on the LACSEF YouTube channel.