WASHINGTON (AP) — A high school student from Texas
has won a $100,000 scholarship for a developing a computer algorithm
that helps robots navigate around obstacles, an algorithm that could be
used in applications like driverless cars.
The Siemens Foundation
announced the winners of its annual science competition for high school
students during a ceremony in Washington on Tuesday. Top individual
honors went to 17-year-old Kensen Shi of College Station, Texas. He combined two previous algorithms into a new and more efficient one that helps robots find a safe path around obstacles.
Shi, a senior at A&M Consolidated High School,
said his algorithm could also be used in robots in factories and in
animation and video game design to create more realistic motion for
virtual characters.
Top team honors went to a trio of students from George W. Hewlett High School in Hewlett, N.Y., for their research on a protein linked to tumor formation. Seniors Jeremy Appelbaum, William Gil and Allen Shin, all 17, will share a $100,000 scholarship.
Six individuals and six teams were competing for awards. The students were the winners of regional competitions.
The runners-up in the team and individual competitions went home with $50,000 scholarships. Jiayi Peng, 17, a senior at Horace Greeley High School
in Chappaqua, N.Y., won second place for her work building and studying
a model that simulates the neuron network in the brain. Peng, the only
female competing for individual honors, said she's interested in
studying math or physics in college.
Second place team honors went to
Daniel Fu and Patrick Tan of Indiana, who created new math techniques
that make it easier to analyze networks of genes and proteins in the
body. The networks are responsible for body rhythms involved in things
like sleep. The 16-year-old juniors got the idea for their project after
watching the 2010 movie "Inception," which is about sleep and dreams.
The Siemens Foundation is a
philanthropic arm of Siemens USA, which is a subsidiary of German
industrial conglomerate Siemens AG. The Siemens Competition began in
1998. This year more than 1,500 projects were submitted to the
competition, which is funded by the Siemens Foundation and administered
by the College Board. LINK
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