San Diego Union-Tribune (Sunday)
S.D. STUDENT MAKES IT TO FINALS OF STEM COMPETITION
Several others from county reach later rounds of contest
A San Diego student was among the 30 finalists of the 10th annual Broadcom Masters, a top STEM middle school competition presented by the Broadcom Foundation and Society for Science & the Public.
Several other San Diego County students made the first cutoff of 300 finalists, chosen from a field of 3,476 students from 42 states and Puerto Rico.
The recent competition, held virtually this year, was won by Ishana Kumar, 12, from Chappaqua, N.Y. She took home the top $25,000 Samueli Foundation Prize for her science project examining optical illusions to better understand cognitive processing.
Reaching the final round of 30 competitors was Agastya Sridharan, an eighth-grader at Thurgood Marshall Middle School in San Diego. His project was “Quantifying the Impact of Search-order Bias on Voting Preferences Using a Simulated Web Environment.” Agastya received $500 for being a top finalist, and also won the Broadcom Leadership Award, given to the finalist chosen by peers to speak for their class at the awards ceremony. The top 30 students participated in online team challenges besides being judged on their science research project.
Several local students made the first ranking of 300 finalists, including three from The Rhoades School in Encinitas. Each of those finalists received $125 from the Department of Defense STEM. They are:
Arjun Chatha, eighth grade, The Rhoades School. Project: “Fall Detection: Using Artificial Intelligence to Help the Elderly”
Daniel Hotz, eighth grade, Mount Helix Academy, La Mesa. Project: “Think Before You Drink: Testing Effective Electrolyte Solutions”
Jennine Manalo, eighth grade, St. Rita’s Catholic School, San Diego. Project: “Generating Energy from Sewage Water Flow”
Tejas Ravi, seventh grade, The Rhoades School. Project: “The Effects of Various Wavelengths on Rod Activity”
Bhadra Rupesh, eighth grade, The Rhoades School. Project: “Evaluating Single Nucleotide Polymorphisms in the Correlation of Phenotypes to Type 2 Diabetes”
Kyle Tianshi, eighth grade, The Cambridge School, San Diego. Project: “Raspberry Pi Powered Microscopic Particle Detector Using Laser Microscopy and Image Processing”
Broadcom MASTERS (Math, Applied Science, Technology and Engineering for Rising Stars), is a program founded and produced by the Society for Science & the Public. It aims to inspire young scientists, engineers and innovators.
Find a full list of finalists at societyforscience.org/broadcom-masters/2020-finalists.