Nadyne Jones is an incoming 6th grader at Lordstown Middle School. Last school year, she needed a unique research idea for her science fair. She decided she'd turn to her brother as her experiment.

"I was trying to come up with ideas for the science fair and my dad said, 'well, why don't you write down your favorite things,' and I did, I included Maverick," Nadyne told 21 News. "My mom was like, 'well, why don't you use Maverick as your science fair project?"

18 month old Maverick was born with a complex congenital heart defect. He has already been through two heart surgeries and two heart catherization procedures at Akron Children's Hospital.

Maverick's heart functions with a single ventricle so Nadyne decided to study how her brother's physical activity affects his vitals.

"The variables that we paid attention to included controlling the room temperatures, the length of the playing time, the method of the pulse oxygen and the pulse measurements and the time of the day," Nadyne explained. "The independent variables included the activity Maverick did. The response variables were the vitals, which we measured, were the oxygen saturation and his heart rate."

Nadyne proved her hypothesis accurate that Maverick would have an increased heart rate and lower oxygen saturation's when doing things like crawling, walking or playing.

"She did her own research to figure out more about him," said Trish Jones, Nadyne and Maverick's mom. "She asked questions and even involved some of my nurse friends and the heart center themselves."

The finished project took first place in the school's science fair. Nadyne credits her win to her brother.

Maverick's health is improving. His parents told 21 News he won't need to go back to the doctors until he has a checkup scheduled for December.