After three years participating in the New Mexico Adventures in Supercomputing Challenge, Santa Fe Indian School senior Daniel Pedro made his exit with two awards, $2,000 in scholarships and a whole lot of experience to his name.

Next stop, The University of New Mexico at Gallup, where the 19-year-old plans to use his knowledge of computers and archaeology to help his fellow Zuni Pueblo members and other New Mexico tribes repatriate ancestral human remains.

Pedro didn't win the Challenge this year — that honor went to a team from La Cueva and St. Pius X high schools for work simulating movement in the upper atmosphere — but Pedro said that doesn't matter.

He's proud of the work he did this year creating a computer program that can tell which tribe ancestral human remains came from. For that work, he won both the Graphical Poster Award and the Sandia Creativity and Innovation Award, he said.

"The Challenge really helps you think on another level," Pedro said. "It's really different than a class. You go much more in depth."

It taught him a lot about technology, giving presentations and the importance of working toward your goals, he said. "It was a whole new introduction for me to computers, and learning and knowing that I could use them to do what I wanted to do," Pedro said.

More than 330 students from 33 schools around New Mexico participated in the yearlong event, where teams compete to make the best project on a supercomputer.

Sponsored mostly by Los Alamos National Laboratory's technology royalty funds, with help from Sandia National Laboratories, the state and other groups, the Challenge, in its 18th year, gave out $70,000 in scholarships and numerous awards.

Students often go on to careers at national laboratories or in other prominent fields of science and technology, said David Kratzer, who organizes the program for LANL. "We have somewhere between 70 and 100 former Challenge students at the lab," he said. "Some stay on after working as students and become staff members. Others go on to other things."

Speakers from New Mexico's national labs actively recruited the kids as they spoke to winners at the awards ceremony Tuesday. "I look forward to reading about you, and hiring you, in the future," Terry Wallace, LANL's associate director of science, technology and engineering, told the crowd.

Punit Shah, an Albuquerque Academy senior who won $10,000 in scholarships, said he's not so sure he'll work for the labs in the future. He hopes to go into computer science and perhaps one day form a New Mexico business of his own.

The 17-year-old already has a Web consulting business in Albuquerque, and he said he'll spend his next two weeks trying to decide between the University of Pennsylvania and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

A Challenge participant since the seventh grade, Shah said the program helped him learn to think like a scientist. "It gives you a modern perception of research," Shah said. "You think of people with beakers in labs as scientists, but that's not really all it is. Things like cancer research, you could save a life with that. That's something that makes science really interesting."

Many judges, organizers and lab employees can trace their scientific roots back to the program, said Marquita Elena Romero, now a judge at the event. Romero participated as a student in the 1997-1998 year as a student at Española Valley High School.

Her project back then, which won the Environmental Modeling award, was on extracting carbon dioxide from materials so it could be used as a fuel source.

After the Challenge, she worked for LANL as a student, then as an intern and finally was hired last year as a staff member working in information technology, Romero said. "The Challenge really gave me exposure to LANL, got me networking with people here," she said. "I think that's how I got my first job here."

It's a good job for a kid from Española, and it has let her stay in the community she grew up in, she said.

"It was a good experience," Romero said. "This year there weren't any kids from Española, but I really hope more sign up next year. It's good for the valley."

Coming back to the Challenge this year as a judge got her hooked. She'll be back to help again next year, she said.

"I was impressed with the work. These kids are so passionate about it. They show teamwork," Romero said. "It's a good feeling to be able to give back to this program. The Supercomputing Challenge helped shape my career, and it holds a special place for me."

Contact Sue Vorenberg at 986-3072 or svorenberg@sfnewmexican.com.

THE WINNERS

First Place: Erika DeBenedictis and Tony Huang, St. Pius X and La Cueva high schools, Albuquerque, "An Analysis of Direct Simulation Monte Carlo and its Application to Simulating Supersonic Shockwaves"

Second Place: Rachel Robey and Jessie Bohn, Los Alamos Middle School, "Energy Efficiency Through Smart Wall Design"

Third Place: Michael Wang and Ari Shaw-Faber, Albuquerque Academy, "Nanoscale Self-Assembly"