Drowning is the third leading cause of accidental deaths globally, in line with the World Health Organization. The deaths disproportionately impression low- and middle-income communities, whose seashores are inclined to lack lifeguards due to restricted funds. Final 12 months 104 drownings of the 120 reported in the United States occurred on unstaffed seashores.
That fueled Angelina Kim’s drone venture. Kim is a senior at the Bishop’s School in La Jolla, Calif. Her Autonomous Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) System for Ocean Hazard Recognition and Rescue: Scout and Rescue UAV Prototype venture was showcased in Might at Regeneron’s International Science and Engineering Fair (ISEF) in Los Angeles.
Kim venture took first place on this 12 months’s IEEE Presidents’ Scholarship competitors: a prize of US $10,000 payable over 4 years of undergraduate college research. The IEEE Foundation established the award to acknowledge a deserving pupil whose venture demonstrates an understanding {of electrical} or electronics engineering, laptop science, or different IEEE subject of curiosity. The scholarship is run by IEEE Educational Activities.
Kim has lengthy been motivated to assist these in want, particularly after her mom’s sickness when Kim was a younger little one.
“I’ve been decided to search out methods to create a safer group utilizing know-how my complete life,” she says. “I spotted as I acquired extra into robotics that know-how can be utilized to guard these in my group.”
Kim and the second- and third-place scholarship winners additionally obtained a complimentary IEEE pupil membership.
As well as, to mark the scholarship’s quarter century, IEEE established a 25th anniversary award to honor a venture that’s prone to make a distinction. It additionally was given out at ISEF.
Drones that may save swimmers’ lives
Angelina Kim’s autonomous drone system, consisting of a scout and rescue drone, goals to stop drownings on seashores that don’t have any lifeguards.Lynn Bowlby
The autonomous UAV lifeguard system consists of two forms of drones: a scout craft and a rescue craft. The scout drone surveys roughly 1 kilometer of shoreline, taking images and analyzing them for rip currents, which might be lethal to swimmers.
The scout drone “implements a brand new model of differential body displacement and a brand new depth-risk mannequin,” Kim says. The displacement compares the earlier picture to the subsequent one and notes in what course a wave is transferring. The algorithm detects rip currents and, utilizing the depth-risk mannequin, focuses on sturdy currents within the deep finish—that are extra harmful. If the scout drone detects a swimmer caught in such a present, it summons the rescue drone. That drone drops a flotation system outfitted with a heaving rope and may pull the endangered swimmer to shore, Kim says.
The rescue drones function with roll-and-pitch tilt rotors, permitting them to fly in no matter course and orientation they should.
Kim says she was shocked and ecstatic to obtain the award: “It felt like a dream come true as a result of IEEE has been the group I’ve all the time needed to be part of.”
She offered her venture at two IEEE gatherings this 12 months: the IEEE International Conference on Control and Automation and the IEEE International Conference on Automatic Control and Intelligent Systems.
Kim says among the roadblocks she encountered together with her venture have made her a greater engineer.
“If all the pieces goes completely, then there is not going to be a lot to be taught,” she says. “However should you fail—like unintentionally flying your drone into your dad and mom’ home, like I did—you get alternatives to be taught.”
She plans to check electrical or mechanical engineering in faculty. Finally, she says, she wish to construct and mass-produce applied sciences that assist communities at a low value.
Recognizing carbon dioxide in soil
Sahiti Bulusu’s Carboflux system measures and tracks carbon ranges in soil to gather knowledge for climatologists. Lynn Bowlby
Excessive carbon dioxide is a number one trigger of world warming and climate change, in line with NASA. Burning fossil fuels is a outstanding supply of carbon dioxide, nevertheless it additionally might be launched from the bottom.
“Individuals don’t account for the big quantities of CO2 that come from soil,” second-place winner Sahiti Busulu says. “Carbon flux is the speed at which CO2 is exchanged between the soil and the environment, and may account for 80 % of web ecosystem carbon trade.”
Busulu is a senior on the Basis Independent highschool in Fremont, California.
Ecosystem carbon exchange is the switch of carbon dioxide between the environment and the bodily setting. As a result of the trade will not be usually accounted for, there’s a niche in knowledge. To offer extra data, Busula created the Carboflux Community.
The sensor node is designed to measure enhanced flux CO2 and add to the Global Ecosystem Monitoring Network. The system accommodates three important subunits: a flux chamber, an under-soil sensor array, and a microcontroller with an information transmission unit. The enclosed flux chamber homes sensors. When CO2 accumulates within the chamber, the linear improve in carbon dioxide focus is used to calculate carbon flux. The second subunit makes use of the gradient methodology, which measures flux utilizing Fick’s regulation, wanting on the CO2 gradient within the soil, and multiplying it with the soil diffusivity coefficient. Sensors are put within the floor at totally different depths to measure the gradient.
“Carboflux makes use of the gasoline focus between the depths to foretell what the soil carbon flux could be,” Bulusu says.
The system is automated and gives real-time knowledge by microcontrollers and a modem. The system research soil flux, each above and beneath the bottom, she says.
“It is ready to be scaled regionally and globally,” she says, “serving to to pinpoint native carbon sources and carbon sinks.” The information additionally may give scientists a large-scale international perspective.
Bulusu got here up together with her concept with assist from mentors and professors Helen Dahlke and Elad Levintal.
“They instructed me concerning the lack of world carbon flux knowledge, and the concept for a community of CO2 flux sensors,” Bulusu says. “This knowledge is required for local weather modeling and mitigation methods.
“I didn’t suppose I’d be so passionate a couple of venture. I really like science, however I by no means thought I’d be somebody who would sit within the rain and chilly for hours attempting to determine an issue. I used to be so invested on this venture, and it has come to this point.”
Bulusu plans to pursue a level in laptop science or environmental science. No matter subject she choses, she says, she needs to enhance the setting with the know-how she creates.
She was awarded a $600 scholarship for her venture.
Accessible communication for ALS sufferers
Gaze Hyperlink, developed by Xiangzhou Solar, makes use of a cellular app, digicam, and artificial intelligence to assist these with ALS talk by their eye actions. Lynn Bowlby
Xiangzhou “Jonas” Solar has been volunteering to assist individuals with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, often known as Lou Gehrig’s illness. After Solar and his household frolicked serving to ALS sufferers and helping caretakers in Hong Kong and the USA, he was impressed to create a cellular app to help them. He’s a senior on the Webb School of California, in Claremont.
Whereas volunteering, he seen that ALS sufferers had bother speaking due to the illness.
“ALS damages neurons within the physique, and sufferers regularly lose the power to stroll, transfer their arms, and communicate,” he says. “My goal with Gaze Hyperlink was to construct a cellular utility that would assist ALS sufferers to kind sentences with solely their eyes and with out exterior help.”
The low-cost smartphone app makes use of eye-gesture recognition, AI sentence technology, and text-to-speech capabilities to permit individuals with disabilities linked to ALS to make use of their telephone’s front-end digicam to speak.
Gaze Hyperlink now works with three languages: English, Mandarin, and Spanish.
Customers’ eye gestures are mapped to phrases and pronunciations, and an AI next-word-prediction function is integrated.
Solar’s ardour for his venture is palpable.
“My favourite second was after I introduced a prototype of Gaze Hyperlink to a caretaker from the ALS Association, and so they had been overjoyed,” he says. “That second was actually emotional for me as a result of I used to be motivated by these sufferers. It gave me an enormous sense of feat that I might lastly assist them.”
Solar obtained a $400 scholarship for putting third.
He says he plans to make use of his engineering know-how to assist individuals with disabilities. He’s obsessed with design and visible arts as effectively, and says he hopes to mix them along with his engineering expertise.
Gaze Hyperlink is out there by Google Play.
An inclusive method to code
Abhisek Shah’s AuralStudio gives a manner for programmers with visible impairments to code utilizing the Rattle language he wrote, which might be learn aloud.Lynn Bowlby
The twenty fifth anniversary award, within the quantity of $1,000, was given to Abishek Shah, a senior at Green Level High School, in Cary, N.C.
Final 12 months Shah had a short lived imaginative and prescient problem, which made taking a look at a pc display screen almost unattainable, even for a short while. After that, whereas visiting household again dwelling in India, he acquired an opportunity to work together with some college students at a faculty for blind women.
Throughout his interactions with the scholars, he says, he realized they had been decided and pushed and needed to be financially impartial. None had even thought of a profession in laptop programming, nonetheless, believing it to be off-limits due to their visible impairment, he says.
He questioned if there was an answer that would assist blind individuals code.
“How can we redesign and rethink the way in which we code at the moment?” he requested himself earlier than devising his AuralStudio. He realized he might put his ardour for coding to good use and created a software program utility for these whose imaginative and prescient impairments are everlasting.
His AuralStudio improvement setting permits programmers with a visible incapacity to write down, construct, run, and take a look at prototypes.
“All this was constructed towards serving to these with disabilities be taught to code,” Shah says.
It eliminates the necessity for a keyboard and mouse in favor of a customized management pad. It features a voice-only possibility for individuals who can’t use their arms.
The testbed makes use of Rattle, a programming language that Shah created to be learn aloud, each from the pc and the programmer. AuralStudio additionally makes use of acyclic digraphs to render code, making it simpler and extra intuitive. Shah wrote a two-part autocorrect algorithm to stop homophones and homonyms from inflicting errors. It was performed by integrating AI into the appliance.
Shah used the programming languages Rust, C, JavaScript, and Python. Raspberry Pi was the first {hardware}.
He labored with visually impaired college students from the Governor Morehead School of Raleigh, N.C., instructing them programming fundamentals.
“The scholars had been so desperate to be taught,” he says. “Attending to see their eagerness, grit, and hard-working nature was so heartwarming and possibly the most effective a part of this venture.”
Shah says he plans to check laptop science and enterprise.
“Something I construct can have the top aim of bettering the lives of others,” he says.
