William Jenkins from The Westminster Schools, Kennedy Rogers from Chapel Hill Middle School in DeKalb County, and Asmi Kumar from Northwestern Middle School in Fulton County have been named among the top young scientists in the country and will compete for more than $100,000 in awards.
William, 14, designed and built an automatic tennis ball sorter. Sensors are lined up to correspond with light beams at different heights and a computer captures which light beam a ball blocks when it bounces. The bounce height determines whether the ball is sorted into good or bad balls. As a competitive tennis player, he wanted to find a more effective way to determine good tennis balls from dead ones. This is currently a manual process that takes a lot of time and money.
Kennedy, 13, designed a prototype for an electronic device with sensors that can be worn by athletes. The device is capable of alerting players, coaches, and parents when a concussion-inducing impact may have occurred.
Asmi, 14, built and programmed a wearable device that tracks users’ heart rates to predict when an emotional meltdown might occur for autistic children. If heartbeats begin to increase too rapidly in a short time, or if they soar or dip abnormally, the mobile application connected to the device sends out a warning notification. Asmi is very passionate about furthering girls’ education in STEM. Last year, she was the middle school level winner of an essay contest by the Association for Women in Mathematics.
Broadcom MASTERS, a program founded and produced by the Society for Science & the Public, encourages middle school students to translate their interests into a passion for STEM. This competition is part of a pipeline that encourages students who show promise to pursue STEM in high school, college and beyond.
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