By JOE ROBERTSON

The Kansas City Star

The Kansas City science fair's two top winners this week won grand awards on an international stage.

Mary Brock, executive director of Science Pioneers, which organizes the Kansas City Science and Engineering Fair, said this is the first time anyone is aware of that both of Kansas City's grand award winners went on to win grand awards at the Intel International Science and Engineering Fair.

The international fair, which brings together more than 1,500 top winners from all 50 states and 70 foreign countries, is an intense competition, Brock said.

"This shows that our fair is drawing talented young people who can compete with anybody in the nation — and in the world," she said.

Tyler Howard won a second-place grand award in energy and transportation at the international fair, held this year in Los Angeles, and Prarthana Dalal won a third-place grand award in medical research.

Howard said he is determined to push the green revolution with energy sources that are alternatives to fossil fuels.

The Olathe Northwest High School senior has designs on a magnesium-based battery project to produce hydrogen gas without carbon byproducts. His life goal, he said, is to play a "decisive" role in the transition to green power. He will be heading to Worcester Polytechnic Institute in Massachusetts in the fall to carry on those studies.

Dalal, a Shawnee Mission East High School senior, wants to help cure blood diseases like sickle cell anemia.

She will be on the medical research track at Northwestern University in Evanston, Ill. She has spent several years digging into the genetics of hemoglobin, all the way down to its DNA — work that earned her top honors in Kansas City three years in a row.

The best part of the past three years has been getting to know the other high-flying students who kept appearing at the same major contests around the nation, Dalal said — young people with big ideas and dreams.

"It's really cool, all the things people are thinking about," she said. "Hopefully there will be a lot of progress."