What Motivated the National Winners of the 2024 Toshiba/NSTA ExploraVision Competition
The Toshiba/NSTA ExploraVision Competition encourages K-12 students across the United States and Canada to solve urgent real-world issues. Students are expected to apply their critical thinking, leadership, and teamwork abilities to create innovative technologies or systems to tackle challenges.
Recently, Toshiba and NSTA announced eight national winning teams for this year’s ExploraVision challenge. The winning concepts addressed problems in fields ranging from healthcare, energy, social, and sustainability challenges. ExploraVision is the world’s largest K-12 science competition dedicated to supporting the next generation of innovators and empowering them to turn their visions into solutions. To find out more about the winners and the “why” behind their solutions, continue reading for highlights from the national winners.
Allergen Detector
Third-grade students, Isabella Gustin, Adriana Icaza, and Emilia Martinez-Christensen of St. Thomas the Apostle in Miami, Florida, won first place in the K-3 category for their idea, Allergen Detector. This device is an idea for a wearable device that helps protect children with food allergies. It utilizes odor and visual sensors to analyze the ingredients of nearby foods and detect if the food is safe to consume or not.
The idea’s inspiration stemmed from students with friends and family members who have severe food allergies. The group wanted to create a device that minimizes the risk of eating out at restaurants for people with food allergies. The students are attracted to the idea that by using medicine and science they can help others benefit from their device.
DermVue: Future of skin cancer diagnosis
The Roy Cloud first-grade students, Charlotte Bae and Lucas Wang, were named second-place winners for the K-3 category in the Toshiba ExploraVision science competition. The DermVue device aims to properly screen individuals for skin cancer to ensure they are aware of their diagnosis before it’s too late. The pair developed their project DermVue with the idea in mind of a device that combines AI technology and medical imaging to enable skin cancer screening. The user is automatically connected to a network of physicians for further evaluation and follow-up if anything is detected during the screening.
While the inspiration behind this device stems from Charlotte’s grandpa’s battle with cancer, she wanted to help others who are battling cancer. The team learned that 30% of people get skin cancer, and the cancer can sometimes lead to severe consequences if not caught early and treated. This led the students to want to discover a solution to help others with cancer.
PLASTIVORE TRASHCAN
Fifth-grade students Aashi Verma, Sanjit Srinivasan, Aadhitiya Mani, and sixth-grader Ariana Banerjee of Lester CN in Roseland, New Jersey won first place for the grade 4-6 category for their Plastivore Trashcan idea. This idea incorporates enzymes derived from the saliva and intestinal bacteria of worms and fungi, which have the power to efficiently break down plastic materials.
The inspiration behind their creation was that the students wanted to find a solution to solve the excessive trash issue in society. One of the students read an article on bacteria that can digest plastic and the team decided to leverage the bacteria to offer an environmentally friendly approach to plastic recycling and waste management that they believe is better than the current recycling methods.
CyberSchool
Fifth-grade student Aubrey Botting and sixth-grade students Ellen Dong and Anjali Kathiravan of St. Andrew Catholic in Ottawa, Ontario won second place for the grade 4-6 category for their CyberSchool idea. CyberSchool is an idea for a solar-powered device like a laptop that features an AI instructor that uses visual aids to support students’ educational needs.
The inspiration behind this idea came from the students who noticed the lack of equal education available to students and hoped to create a device that leveled the playing field by providing equal access to education for all students. The goal of CyberSchool is to globally empower individuals who need educational assistance.
Pediabots: Harnessing Microbotic Technologies for Pediatric Surgery
Seventh-grade students, Bryan Zhao and Alex Caesar of Next Generation School in Champaign, Illinois, won first place for the grade 7-9 category for their idea. Pediabots technology uses artificial intelligence techniques to assist in making decisions about the most efficient way to carry out surgical steps.
The inspiration behind this idea was that one of the students needed surgery when he was a baby. The story sparked an interest in creating a technology idea to help perform infant surgeries. The goal of the technology is to save as many lives of infants as possible.
Rubicase Trees: Enhancing Photosynthesis in Trees for Carbon Reduction using Rubisco Activase
Ninth-grade students, Camille Chu and Shayan Salimi from The Nueva School in San Mateo, California, won second place in the grade 7-9 category for their idea for Rubicase Trees. This idea is aimed at enhancing environmental sustainability through biotechnology. The core component of this innovation is in optimizing the Rubisco Activase enzyme. This enables trees to reactivate key molecular pathways more effectively, significantly increasing their capacity to absorb carbon dioxide rather than oxygen.
The inspiration behind the idea was to reduce carbon emissions by increasing the capacity of trees to absorb carbon dioxide. The mission was to create an idea that utilized biotechnology to reach environmental sustainability efforts toward a more sustainable future.
N4NO (Nanocarriers for Neuroprosthetic Optimization) – a novel noninvasive neural dust insertion method through cerebrospinal-fluid route via micelles for neuroprosthetic aid
Eleventh-grade students from the North Carolina School of Science and Math, Yvonne Shih, Vishnu Vanapalli, Amy Lei, and Arianna Lee, placed first in the grade 10-12 category for their idea for N4NO. The idea is a novel minimally invasive technology that utilizes a neural dust insertion method through cerebrospinal fluid in order to deliver tiny neural dust “mote” BCIs to specific brain locations.
The inspiration behind this idea was the team’s fascination with biomedical engineering, particularly its neuroscience applications. The goal was to create an innovation that allowed the integration of technology and health science to improve patient outcomes.
Mycelial batteries: incorporating electrically conductive fungi into sodium-ion batteries in order to increase their efficiency and lifespan
Tenth-grade students from the Bronx High School of Science Liam Hernandez, Liah Igel, and Johnston Chen, placed second place in the grade 10-12 category for their idea for Mycelial batteries. The idea uses the power of fungi to enhance the performance of sodium-ion batteries. This technology replaces traditional electrolytes with living fungal hyphae to transfer ions between electrodes without buildup, thereby extending the battery’s life span.
The inspiration for the idea came from one of the students having read a book about how fungi can transmit and store an electric charge. The team decided to leverage the fungi’s electrical charge abilities with sodium-ion batteries. The students aimed to address environmental issues and stated in a recent interview with News 12 that their batteries could potentially help with global warming issues.
Photo credit to JAX Photography.
Members of the first-place national winning teams each received $10,000 U.S. Savings Bonds and the second-place winners each received $5,000 U.S. Savings Bonds. The national winning teams participated in a weekend celebration in mid-June in Washington, DC.