How did you spend your summer vacation?
Five local Cupertino Union School District students have been honored with cold, hard cash for their scientific studies this summer in the Super Summer Science Search contest. The brainy competition put on by the Cupertino Library Foundation is in its third year and sees students use resources from the Santa Clara County Library District’s databases to unearth knowledge about music, the arts, medicine and technology.
First place went to Kennedy Middle School seventh-grader Ashvin Irrinki for his work studying the ventriculoperitoneal shunt, a device implanted in the human body to help drain excess cerebrospinal fluid from the cavities called ventricles, located in the brain. The shunt is used to help treat a medical condition called hydrocephalus, a condition in which there is too much accumulation of cerebrospinal fluid in the ventricles caused by hemorrhages, head trauma and birth defects.
“It feels great,” Ashvin says of his first-place finish. “I wasn’t really expecting it. I just wanted to try and do my best.”
Second place went to the team of Gautham Gujjula and Rithin Venkatesh for their study of ASIMO, the humanoid robot. ASIMO, short for Advanced Step in Innovative Mobility, is a fully mobile assistant for offices, schools and physically impaired people. It is still in testing and development, and the student-led team theorized different ways to improve the robot for wider-spread consumer use in the future.
Third place went to Mythili Bhethanabotla and Susan Zhou for their project titled “Monet Not Money: Art Forgery,” which centered on using science to detect bogus works of art. The team put together a nearly five-minute YouTube video skit that explained Morellian analysis and how X-rays and white lead dating could be used to spot a forgery.
Students from any of the five Cupertino Union School District middle schools were eligible for the contest. The S^4 contest saw 118 entries and 47 teams.
“The teen and adult judges were amazed by the quality and depth of the entries,” Bev Lenihan, Cupertino Library Foundation board member and project director, said in a press release. “The videos were exceptional, and the journals gave insight to their fascinating lives and personalities.”
The Cupertino Library Foundation held six study sessions throughout the spring and summer for students to work on their projects. Assistance came from local high school students.
Each entry by either an individual, or a team of up to three, had to submit a report, a journal, their research citations and a presentation. Winning teams did short presentations at a celebration Aug. 16.
The first-place winner received an iPad mini. Each member of the second-place team received $100, and each member of the third-place team received $50.
Contest judging took place in three flights consisting of S^4 organizers, local teens and technology professionals from high-tech giants such as Apple, Google and Hewlett-Packard.
There was no cost to enter the contest. A grant from the Peter Likhachev Foundation helped finance this year’s S^4 competition. The library foundation is looking into making the program portable to other library entities who want to run similar contests.
“This was a very fun experience and very educational,” says Mythili, 13, an incoming Lynbrook High School student. “You can learn a lot about something you are interested in.”
Rithin, a 14-year-old incoming Monta Vista student, added, “Competitions like this encourage us to research and learn about something that might change the lives of many people.”
For more information about S^4 and to view documents and videos associated with winning entries, visit cupertinolibraryfoundation.org.
