Tyler Page, a freshman at Bangor High School, wants to be an engineer some day.

He certainly got a jump start on that career after his experiment won first place in Division 1 Engineering at the state FFA Agriscience Fair in June. Page’s top finish in Madison guaranteed him a trip to Indianapolis for the FFA’s national convention and competition.

His achievement has made an impression on Robert Ickler, agriscience instructor at Bangor High School. “You don’t think kids this age can do these kinds of things — but Tyler did,” Ickler said.

Page’s experiment involved supercharging a magnet with a Van de Graaf generator, a machine that uses a moving belt to build up high charges of static electricity on a metal globe.

“I wondered if there was a way to make a magnet stronger by passing electricity through it. I thought this might be a way to give it more ‘oomph,’” Page said.

Page went on the Internet, found a design for a Van de Graaf generator, then built it himself, customizing it for his experiment. Although his apparatus certainly has a homemade feel — a Pepsi can and an olive jar are important parts of the structure — it works just fine.

He wrote up his methods, explained step-by-step how he did the experiment, what the results were and why he came to the conclusion he did. In addition, he had to build a display board that illustrated how the experiment worked,” Ickler said.

“The way I measured the magnet’s strength was by trying to lift a pile of nails at a standardized height,” Page said.

It turned out, as Page had suspected, that the magnet that was hooked up to the Van de Graaf generator was much stronger. “In some cases it lifted all the nails even before they were at the standardized height,” Page said.

Just like scientists who work in laboratories and submit their work to professional journals, Page then wrote up a summary of what he did in an abstract.

Conducting a successful experiment was just part of winning the top award at the state FFA convention —Page also had to be able to explain it to others. The judges at the state convention in Madison held an oral interview with Page to assess how well he could communicate what his experiment was about.

Page said he looks forward to the competition in Indianapolis. “I’ve never been to a national competition before,” he said.

Ickler, however, has been to the national FFA Convention numerous times and he’s come away wowed by the talents of budding young scientists.

“It’s mind boggling the things these students come up with and the research they do. As just one example, a few years ago a kid built his own miniature ethanol plant and then he and his dad ran their lawnmowers on the homemade fuel,” recalled Ickler.

“Tyler wants to be an engineer. That’s his career goal so this should really benefit him. It’s a great opportunity for him to explain his ideas in public. His display must be set up by Wednesday (Oct. 22), Thursday he has interviews and Friday will be an open house. He will be meeting people, shaking hands and answering questions,” Ickler said.

Although this will be his first time at a national competition, Page seems to be taking everything in stride: “I think it’s gone pretty well so far,” he said.