Peggy Scripps Award for Science Communication

Maddux Springer, Iolani School, HI, United States of America

Maddux Alexander Springer, 18, of Honolulu, Hawaii, received the Peggy Scripps Award for Science Communication of $10,000 for his research into fibropapillomatosis (FP), a disease that is the primary cause of death in green sea turtles. Some turtles he studied in Kaneohe Bay, Hawaii, were stricken with a disease that causes internal and external tumors that inhibit their everyday lives. After analyzing the turtles’ diet of green algae, Maddux concluded that this disease, wastewater, invasive algae and the amino acid arginine all pose a grave risk to these endangered sea creatures. 

Video

ANIM047 — Determining the Distribution of Arginine in Gracilaria salicornia and Codium edule and Fibropapillomatosis Rates in Chelonia mydas in Kāneʻohe Bay

Eugene Chen, Shanghai High School International Division, China

Eugene Chen, 16, of Shanghai, China, received $10,000 for his inexpensive energy-saving device that recycles the condensation produced by air conditioners to improve their energy efficiency. His device directs the cooling fan’s airflow to spray the air conditioner’s condensation at its own condenser, lowering its temperature and thus reducing power consumption and improving its energy efficiency. Eugene believes his easy-to-install device can reduce the amount of electricity used by air conditioners by more than 10%.

Video

EGSD002 — Energy-Free Power Saving Device for Air Conditioners

Anika Puri, Horace Greeley High School, NY, United States of America

Anika Puri, 17, of Chappaqua, New York, received $10,000 for her low-cost machine learning software that can analyze night-time infrared videos taken by a drone flown over the African wilderness to spot elephant poachers in real time. In tests, her $300 system worked with 91% accuracy, a fourfold improvement over current systems, without needing high-resolution thermal cameras that can cost up to $10,000.

Video

EAEV066 — ElSa: A Novel Real-Time Wildlife Poacher Detection Solution Leveraging Machine Learning-Driven Spatio-Temporal Analysis of Nighttime UAV Thermal Infrared Videos

Franklin Wang, Palo Alto Senior High School, CA, United States of America

Franklin Wang, 17, of Palo Alto, California received $10,000 for his project engineering machine learning to analyze public telescope data. Through his research, he discovered six never-before-seen near-Earth asteroids. His approach can be applied to any observatory to substantially improve the detection of and search speed for fast moving asteroids (FMAs.)

Video

PHYS050 — The Fast and Inconspicuous: New Near Earth Asteroids Discovered Using Deep Learning and Synthetic Data Are Fainter and Move Faster than Those Previously Discovered