Finalists, Mentors and Judges
Today’s Innovators
Get to know the diverse personalities of students, 3M Mentors, and others who have contributed their unique talents to the 3M Young Scientist Challenge. Use the tabs below to explore exciting ideas and inspirations from previous years’ challenges.
Aishwarya Agrawal
Vesque Method - A Watering Method to Save Water
Globally, agriculture uses 70 percent of freshwater. My goal was to help reduce the amount of water that plants need, while ensuring that the plant is still healthy. I found a method of watering that can reduce the amount of water a plant needs by 50 percent by decreasing the time that pores are open.
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Asvini Thivakaran
Piezoelectric Power Generation from Automotive Tires
Global warming, climate change, and air pollution are some of the most prevalent global issues of today. Asnavi developed the Piezoelectric Power Generation from Automotive Tires
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Austin Ewing
The Automated Car Garden
Austin developed The Automated Car Garden
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Daniel Thomas
A Novel Dosing Pump to Prevent Clogs and Organic Overgrowth In AC Condensate Lines
Daniel developed a Novel Dosing Pump to Prevent Clogs and Organic Overgrowth In AC Condensate Lines
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Delisha Manuel
Piezoelectric Roads
Delisha developed Piezoelectric Roads
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Harini Venkatesh
The Comptometrist: An Efficient Way to Determine Myopic Power
Harini developed The Comptometrist, a prototype designed to cut down the time needed to determine myopic power in a patient’s eyes.
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Isha Joshi
Tracking Parkinson’s Symptoms and Stages with HandPD Dataset in a Mobile App
Isha developed Tracking Parkinson’s Symptoms and Stages with HandPD Dataset in a Mobile App
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John Lee
A Novel MoS2 Electrode for Enhancing Electrochemical Hydrogen Production
Hydrogen (H2) can improve energy consumption by producing an alternative energy source to carbon-based fuels.
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Leanne Fan
Finsen Headphones: Treating Mid-Ear Infections Using Machine Learning and Phototherapy
Leanne developed the Finsen Headphones: Treating Mid-Ear Infections Using Machine Learning and Phototherapy
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Pratyush Sathish Kumar
Low carbon mat comprises packaging waste materials
Pratyush developed a concept for Low carbon mat comprises packaging waste materials
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Sahasra Swargam
Soil Fungi Arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi Fights Climate Change using Artificial Intelligence and IOT
Carbon dioxide (CO2) is the main greenhouse gas responsible for rising global temperatures and abrupt climate changes which threaten food production and ecological systems.
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Sahit Jayaweera
VertiMoss
Air pollution is a huge problem in city areas, especially in low-income areas. While trees are useful, they are too costly and require too much maintenance. My solution was to create a vertical moss panel that could be used in a city setting to reduce air pollution and sequester carbon while being low cost and low maintenance.
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Samaira Mehta
OVision - The Automatic Assessment of Ovarian Cancer Features & Mesothelin Protein Overexpression from Histopathological Images using Deep Learning
Ovarian cancer (OC) is the deadliest cancer of the female reproductive organs. 65% of ovarian cancer patients die each year in the United States alone. The best way to reduce that number is for doctors to develop a treatment plan that is specific to the patient and their condition.
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Salamat Ibrahim
Eco-Solution: The Earthly Journey into Improving Earth's Water Sources
The situation that I will be addressing is trying to improve the environment for both animals, plants, and humans from a toxic element known as chlorine, (Cl) This chemical element has been used to act as bleach to kill harmful bacteria in drinking water.
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Sanjay Iyer
Detecting Microplastics in Tea Bags Using Nile Red Dye
As of 2020, tea is the second most consumed beverage in the United States; every day, 50% of the population drinks 2.16 billion cups of tea. Though the consumption of tea presents numerous health benefits, it also introduces the topic of microplastics entering and harming the human body.
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Sara DeVolld
Illuminations
Illuminations are wearable, fashion-forward LED garments and jewelry used to combat Seasonal Affective Disorder in the long, dark winter months of northern communities.
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Shanza Sami
Pura Aerem: Leveraging Catalytic Converters for Enhanced Filtering Efficacy
Shanza developed a five-stage prototype with a diffuse filtration system, carbon nanotube (CNT) screening, electrolysis chamber, hydrogen fuel cells, and photoelectrochemical oxidation (PECO) technology.
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Shriyadita De
Empowering Communities to Monitor Local Watersheds for Rapid Response
I have created a cheap stream water monitoring device using an open source “Arduino” electronics board to measure the turbidity, temperature, and pH of the water, and hope to send the data that is collected from the sensors into a server so everyone can access it via a webpage or a phone app.
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Silas Erwin
PERCEY (Personal Emotional Robot for Connecting and Educating Youth)
PERCEY is a companion robot that can teach kids coding and STEM but also contains a cellular hotspot so low-income families can get access to the internet and every kid can get telehealth counseling. Also, PERCEY uses deep neural networks and integrated telehealth to help you in times of need.
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Amritha Praveen
ASD Screener - Early Risk Assessment of Autism Spectrum disorder using Machine Learning
Autism is one of the most common developmental disabilities that impact social and communication skills. While there is no cure, intensive early intervention can make a big difference in the quality of life for many children
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Asa Limmer
Prion Scanner
My new innovation would be to create a scanner with a programmed chip that would learn how to recogize PrP^Sc found in deer or elk in that area. As the scanner looks through the lymph nodes, obex, or tonsils, it will be going through the programmed information and if it notices the slightest trace of PrP^Sc it will mean that likely the deer has CWD.
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Catherine Manley
Creating a Healthier Human Society
The Aquabot is my invention that uses thermoelectricity to condense clean drinking water out of the air without using a filtration system for people in need of clean water. It is self-sustainable and has very few parts so it will not break down easily. It is powered only by renewable resources and releases no byproducts. The Aquabot is portable and cheap to make it as accessible as possible for the people in need.
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Henry Martin
Mood Melodies
Seeing as there is an especially heightened amount of stress with the ongoing pandemic and other global issues, I wanted to help people manage their anxiety. This led me to create a website that can help a user cope with negative emotions via music. The site feeds data from the user’s webcam into a neural network to analyze the user’s face and determine their emotion.
Learn More >Elizabeth Gill
A Dog’s Advanced Prosthetic Leg
This project is about an advanced prosthetic leg for canines that have lost one or more of their legs and need to fulfill their daily lives to their best ability.
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