59th Annual STS (1999–2000)
Finalists
Robert Y. Wang

ARKANSAS
Robert Y. Wang, 15, of Conway, completed a computer science project for the Intel Science Talent Search. Inspired by an interest in the limitations of computer game graphics, he expects his work will be important in such fields as medical imaging, scientific visualization and visual simulation. Real-looking graphics can require numerous polygons, significantly slowing computer performance as they're generated. Robert's research focused on a technique called level of detail control. He suggests that image processing can be accelerated by a continuous level of detail control, eliminating unnecessary polygons, such as those on the back of a curved object or outside the field of view. At Conway High School, Robert's activities include the astronomy club, computer science club and the varsity swim team, and he counts among his hobbies stamp collecting and word-search puzzles. Born in China, he has won top honors in piano and French competitions as well as science fairs, where he won twice the Intel Excellence in Computer Science award. Robert is the son of Dr. Ming-fang Wang and Yuan-yuan Xu and hopes to attend Caltech.