Cape junior advances to regional science fair in Philly April 2

Cape Henlopen High School junior William Dorsch earned a second-place finish at the Sussex County Science Fair held March 6-7 at the Delaware Tech Owens Campus in Georgetown.

Dorsch entered the science fair with no expectation of his project earning one of the top spots, but was pleasantly surprised.

“Initially, I started this project just for fun on my own time and didn’t realize that it was going to place so well,” said Dorsch. “I was excited to learn I earned second place and was really happy that other people found my science experiment to be interesting, and worth a top spot in the competition.”

Participants in the Sussex County Science Fair are required to conduct a research project in the category of science, engineering or math. The student will conduct preliminary research, keep an experimental journal, carry out the project and write a paper of their findings. The culmination is a poster that describes the findings as well as a verbal defense given to the judges.

“I’m very proud of William and his accomplishments at this year’s Sussex County Science Fair,” said Peter Olson, teacher at Cape. “Once he figured out the type of project he wanted to submit, he spent time on his own conducting the research, logging the data and writing code to process that data. It’s very impressive, and I look forward to seeing how he excels at the regional level in Philadelphia.”

Falling into the Earth and Space Science Category, Dorsch’s project uses drones to measure temperature profiles in the atmosphere to see what vertical changes occur, and if the drone can measure those changes accurately.

“The data collection is so unique that I needed to write my own code to process it and graph it in a way others will be able to read it,” Dorsch said. “Between now and the state competition April 2, I’ll continue to conduct experiments and will create a logbook of the new data and the data that I previously collected.”

The Delaware Valley Science Fair will be held Wednesday, April 2, at the Greater Philadelphia Expo Center in Oaks, Pa. Competitors from Pennsylvania, southern New Jersey and Delaware will be participating. Upon graduation from Cape in 2026, Dorsch hopes to major in meteorology at the University of Delaware.