Posted
Mar 18, 2015 in “News”
Mass
Academy of Math and Science takes top honors at Worcester Regional
Science and Engineering Fair
Identity
theft is an all-too-common side effect of 21st century
conveniences—according to the Bureau of Justice Statistics, 16.6
million people were victims in 2012 alone.
When
it comes to our Smartphones, 17-year-old Yashaswini Makaram knew
there had to be a better—and more convenient—method than simple
password protection. So the analytically minded student at the
Massachusetts Academy of Math and Science at WPI set about to
experimenting.
The
result is her project, “The Phoney Lift: Using Accelerometers to
Identify People,” which placed No. 1 in the 60th annual Worcester
Regional Science and Engineering Fair, held at WPI on March 13. Her
ongoing endeavor makes use of accelerometers, gyroscopes, hundreds of
measurements, and trigonometric computations, ultimately determining
nine observations that define a person.
“I
like the area that I’m working in right now,” Makaram said. “I
want to do something closer to the edge, mixing the different fields
of science.”
Makaram’s
work was chosen from among 126 projects by 163 area high school
students, with awards given out following a keynote by President
Laurie Leshin. Now Makaram and five other top finishers will go on to
the International Science and Engineering Fair in Pittsburgh in May.
Forty-two other students were given honorable mentions, qualifying
them as regional delegates to the Massachusetts State Science and
Engineering Fair, to be held May 1 and 2 at the Massachusetts
Institute of Technology.
Mass
Academy dominated Friday’s fair, claiming five of the top six
awards.
“Every
year they seem to outdo themselves,” Mass Academy director Mike
Barney said as the winning students mugged for photos on the Alden
Hall stage nearby. They typically start brainstorming in August, he
said—a full half-year ahead of time—and all their work is from
scratch. “All this is original research. The students work so
hard.”
The
regional competition is open annually to students in 9th through 12th
grades from numerous public, private, parochial, charter, and home
schools in Central Massachusetts. The middle school division of the
fair is to be held at WPI on May 5.
Projects
were displayed all day Friday at the Odeum at the Campus Center; the
hall was abuzz with conversation by budding scientists and engineers
and their mentors, future instructors, and curious onlookers.
The
works covered a wide swath of disciplines and topics—circadian
rhythm disturbances on cricket neurodegeneration; affordable
lower-limb prosthetics in developing countries; the effects of
therapy dogs on human blood pressure; preventing concussions in
contact sport collisions; light-following robots;
electricity-generating backpacks; the benefits of volcanoes;
electrolytes in drinks; and the spectrum of plant growth.
Roughly
100 judges from numerous fields—representing EMC, National Grid,
Mass. Department of Conservation and Recreation, and U.S. Army Natick
Soldier RD&E Center, among others—critiqued students on
criteria such as originality, feasibility, clarity of oral
presentation, application of quantitative and statistical tests, and
effectiveness of visual display.
Serving
as further inspiration for the great minds of tomorrow, President
Leshin offered her keynote on her NASA work on the Mars rover
Curiosity.
As
she explained before the crowd of students, parents, and educators,
the rover was designed to look for evidence that water once flowed on
Mars. Its landing area was the 80-mile-wide Gale Crater, and it
touched down at 10:30 p.m. on Aug. 5, 2012.
“I
remember the date extremely well, because it happened to be my
birthday,” Leshin said. “It was a pretty good birthday present.”
Still,
she and her team only spent a few minutes celebrating, she said; the
rest of that night and the ensuing months were dedicated to work on
the rover, which is outfitted with numerous cameras, weather
instrumentation, spectrometers, chemical sensors, and a drill, scoop,
and laser that shoots tiny holes in rocks.
What
it has since discovered among Mars’s canyons, enormous volcanoes,
and “thousands and thousands of dried-up river beds,” is a
rounded pebble conglomerate similar to one that indicates water on
earth. It has also photographed elaborate textured layers on rocks, a
geometric pattern that tells scientists there were once flowing
currents there. The crater that served as its landing pad was
probably once a lake, Leshin posited.
“Was
there anything swimming in that lake? We don’t know yet,” she
said, explaining that the robot’s next mission is to make a slow
crawl up the nearby Mt. Sharp.
Overall,
“It’s a great mission,” she said, “It’s an exciting time.”
THE FAIR’S TOP FINISHERS:
Georgie
Botev, Mass Academy, “Single Track Gray Codes: A General
Construction and Extensions.”
Kyle
Foster, Wachusett Regional High School, “They Get Knocked Down, But
They Get Up Again!”
Marian
Dogar, Mass Academy, “Effects of Turine on Memory Retention in D.
Dorotocephala.”
Amol
Punjabi, Mass Academy, “New Algorithms for Virtual Drug Screening
Applied to Cancer.”
Aishwarrya
Arivudainambi, Mass Academy, “Effects of Curcumin and Piperine on
Development in D.
rerio.”
Follow
Curiosity
on
Twitter @marscuriosity or @laurieofmars.
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