Bright Kids!

When she was 8 years old, Kylie Simonds of Naugatuck, Connecticut was diagnosed with rhabdomyosarcoma, a rare cancer of the connective tissues. She is now in remission and recovering from the ordeal. Throughout her illness, one of the obstacles she endured was the IV pole wires that would cause her to constantly trip up. She also needed help pushing the pole around because it was too heavy for her. Kylie invented a pediatric IV backpack; a colourfully-designed, wearable IV machine for kids receiving chemotherapy or transfusions. She calls it the I-Pack.

A New York teenager, whose grandfather suffers from Alzheimer’s disease, won a $50,000 science prize for developing wearable sensors that send mobile alerts when a dementia patient begins to wander away from bed. Kenneth Shinozuka, 15, who took home the Scientific American Science in Action award, said his invention was inspired by his grandfather’s symptoms, which frequently caused him to wander from bed in the middle of the night and hurt himself.

A student has won an award from the Environmental Protection Agency for his environmentally-friendly invention, which cleans car exhaust that would normally pollute the air. Param Jaggi, 17, came up with the idea after seeing how much carbon dioxide was released from a car. Param designed a device called the “Algae Mobile,” which is inserted into the exhaust pipe of a car. Through photosynthesis, algae inside the aluminium-alloy tube converts carbon dioxide into oxygen, and releases it into the air.

In 2013, Eesha Khare won a $50,000 prize at an international science fair, for creating an energy storage device that can be fully- charged in 20 to 30 seconds. The fast-charging device is a supercapacitor. A supercapacitor can pack a lot of energy into a tiny space, charges quickly and holds its charge for a long time. What’s more, it can last for 10,000 charge-recharge cycles, compared with 1,000 cycles for conventional rechargeable batteries, according to the young inventor, who comes from Saratoga, California.

Adapted from an article by Grace Murano on ODDEE website.