Kind: captions
Language: en
by the end of this video one of these
three high school seniors will be
awarded two hundred and fifty thousand
dollars for their original scientific
research now the way this went down was
Regeneron the sponsor of this video
invited me out to Washington DC for the
awards gala of the Regeneron Science
Talent Search this is the nation's
oldest and most prestigious science and
math competition for high school seniors
founded and produced by Society for
science and the public here the 40
finalists were honored and the top 10
winners announced now they couldn't tell
me who was going to win because not even
they knew beforehand and that's because
the students are judged not only on the
strength of their projects but also on
interviews where they are asked very
challenging questions about a wide range
of scientific topics so I selected three
students to follow and find out more
about their projects just to be clear
these were not the top three place
winners they are students I picked in
advance but it just so happened that I
picked the winner so can you pick the
winner let's meet the candidates Roenick
Roy redesigned the faux Raptor that's
the device used to determine I glass
prescriptions it contains dozens of
precision glass lenses making it bulky
heavy expensive and a design that hasn't
really changed in two hundred years I
wanted to make something that you know
could could fit the greater than half
the Earth's population who you know
can't just you know drive down to an
optometrist office and just get a
prescription so can we see it oh yeah
absolutely so this is this is my child
here this is this is the portable faux
Raptor as you can see it has the the
liquid lens that um is actually the one
responsible for replacing that the
dozens of precisely machine lenses here
so how does this liquid lens work right
so it has a droplet of a polar substance
and water I'm at a droplet of a
non-polar substance like like a mineral
oil when you apply a voltage across a
big the voltage will cause the the polar
substance to actually like change its
shape and go hug or repel the surfaces
of the lens so by changing the shape of
the bubble you change the way light
refracts through it as it passes through
that the two class windows
and therefore you know you're changing
the focal length of the lens you you
made an happen yeah I did so the screen
you're looking at which is runs on an
app on my smartphone displays a test
chart and runs an algorithm to actually
do the refraction I mean those are
pretty small letters those three static
glass lenses are able to make it so the
light coming from the phone are
projected to a virtual distance of that
twenty feet so it's basically simulating
that that test room but you know
optically instead so the way it works is
there's an algorithm running on the
smartphone app that generates pairs of
lens voltages for the patient to compare
and in order to switch between the two
lens voltages the patient can click a
button on a pair of headphones so you
can click once to toggle between the two
and once you've found which of the two
is that the best okay that's better all
right so you can double click it and it
will you know indicate to the algorithm
that it indeed is the best and generate
the next pair yeah I think you got worse
yeah um so am I gonna click yeah okay
that's better but it's not the best I've
seen the algorithm will basically cycle
through this lens voltage pair
generation process this is like night
and day
it's not like it's not even a question
until it zeros in on on the one voltage
that works the best for you okay okay
man
aha yes Test complete
all right awesome would you like to know
I would love to know what my eyesight is
like all right so I calculated negative
1.25 diopters um which is roughly in the
range that most people with slight
nearsightedness would have on a humphrey
wanted to find hidden exoplanets with
math the Kepler space telescope has been
the most prolific planet finder to date
detecting over 2,000 exoplanets by
measuring a dip in their host stars
brightness when they pass in front of it
but what happens if the planet passes
just above or just below the star also
what if that planet is really small
those little tiny shadows are really
hard to pull out and you've got a lot of
noise a further challenge is that the
Kepler mission only ran for four years
that means
our absolute limit is it's really hard
to find anything that takes longer than
four years to orbit to identify planets
Kepler might have missed
ahna looked at existing multi planetary
systems and calculated whether
additional planets could fit in between
the ones we observed without disturbing
their orbits I imagine that you already
have some sort of planets here so we're
going to call this planet X so what are
these two lines this line here is the
same as this outer line it's how close
the your imaginary planet can get to
your outer planet and this line here is
your a x-men so it's how close your
imaginary planet can get to your inner
planet so it's this line here we have
this region of stability given the
extremes of where we can put a planet
and we have the maximum mass you can fit
there and anything in this area here
sort of shader on our label anything
between these two graphs it's a
combination of a planet's mass and a
location of the planet that we could fit
in between the two we know about and
maintain a stable system cool yeah the
question everyone will ask you is like
what's to say that this planet really
exists as opposed to you just making up
stuff to the assumption that I made
going into my research was that systems
are going to try to have as many planets
packed in as possible this is called the
past planetary system hypothesis
there are 560 locations where we could
fit additional planets so quite a few
how might we go about actually finding
them one of the ways you could go about
doing this is by doing something called
folding the data so let's say we figure
out that a planet should have an orbital
period of about one month we have a
year's worth of data and we fold that
data in twelve and get it to line up
just right we can get it so those
transit signals actually layer on top of
each other and then we get a larger
signal as a that you know we can find as
opposed to the really small signals that
sort of get lost in the noise junaid
reduce yourself name what do you my name
is Anjali Chara I am a senior at DuPont
manual High School in Louisville can
what is this Anjali was concerned with
dangerous contaminants in drinking water
this is a prototype of my arsenic sensor
so you want to load a water sample right
here in this compartment the whole
process starts with an automated
chemical reaction so there are a bunch
of chemical reagents that sit in this
compartment above the water sample
so the first reagent is tartaric acid
next is a combination of salts it's
called mono potassium sulfate and the
third is good sink arsenic is an element
that's never found freely but it's
always bound to other elements so
basically that chemical reaction will
help to free up all of the arsenic and
then the arsenic content changes into a
gaseous form of arsine gas and that's
the best detectable form of arsenic
basically so what happens after that gas
is formed is that there is a test strip
and it's covered in mercury bromide
which oxidizes in response to the
arsenic and then changes color so it's
actually on a gradient scale there's
very little arsenic content then it just
a light color and if there's a lot
changes a dark color and everything in
between right so what I then did was
write an image processing algorithm
using some embedded electronic devices
specifically this device called an R do
cam it's just an embedded camera and
essentially the camera takes a picture
of that test strip after it's changed
color it then pulls out all of the color
values of the test strip and converts
them into concentration data so I wrote
mathematical models that kind of make
that conversion and then the last kind
of piece of the puzzle is that there is
this device it's a microcontroller
called a particle electron and it's
connected to this cellular antenna so
that the data is instantaneously
transmitted to the cloud the real
advantages of that is that several
people would be able to access the data
collected from one sensor whether it's
people in the same community who want to
kind of have that information and
knowledge about their water sources or
whether it's people in research
organizations who are trying to really
learn more learn what to test learn what
to improve and what sites to really work
on so those are kind of the reasons why
to do that so now the moment of truth
which one of these high school students
will win two hundred and fifty thousand
dollars now I should point out that all
40 finalists each receive at least
$25,000 with the top ten receiving more
than that the first-place winner and
recipient of a 250 thousand dollar award
from TC Williams High School in
Alexandria Virginia Anna country
[Applause]
[Music]
congratulations to onna Humphrey on
winning this year's Regeneron Science
Talent Search if you know any bright
American high school students please
consider sending them this video it
could be their turn next up on that
stage and if you are an American high
school student think about these numbers
around 3.6 million students graduate
high school in the u.s. each year but
only 2,000 or so applied the Regeneron
Science Talent Search that means if you
enter your science research project you
have a 1 in 50 shot of winning at least
$25,000 I mean when else in high school
do you get the opportunity to get such a
financial boost and receive recognition
for your ability in science and math
this opportunity could literally be
life-changing
so take the next step click the link in
the description and sign up to receive
updates about the competition entries
are open to all American high school
seniors for next year starting June 1st
and good luck now a little epilogue
about Ana you know I asked her what
inspired her to pursue this research in
the first place and she told me her
research the Caltech account I had
predicted this ninth planet do you know
what the researchers names were Mike
Brown and have seen fatigue analysis
less hmm so I took her work and showed
it to konstantin batygin when i first
looked at this I was blown away by the
fact that this was a high school student
right I mean this is this is done at the
very least at the level of a senior
undergraduate maybe a graduate level
students right it is a PhD level student
and finally when I was watching the
black hole press conference the other
morning we have seen and taken a picture
of a black hole
who should be in the audience asking a
question on a Humphrey it's like science
is in her blood I expect to see much
more in the future from this very
talented young scientist Congrats again
Anna
you