Three Indian American youths are among the ten budding student scientists from across the country who will begin a unique summer mentorship program with a 3M scientist as finalists in the Discovery Education 3M Young Scientist Challenge, one of the nation’s premier science competitions for students in grades 5-8.
In January, Discovery Education and 3M challenged students across the country to create a video that described a new innovation or solution that could solve or impact an everyday problem related to how we live, work or play.
These students displayed top scientific ingenuity and inventive thinking and will now move forward into the next round to develop their idea from a concept into an actual prototype, with support from their 3M mentors.
The Indian American youths are 14-year-old Anish Chaluvadi, of Simpsonville, S.C., who attends Langston Charter Middle School as an eighth grader; Srijay Kasturi, of Reston, Va., who is a 12-year-old homeschooled student at the seventh grade level; and Aishani Sil, of Plano, Texas, who is a 12-year-old Rice Middle School student in the seventh grade.
At the end of the summer, students will travel to the 3M Innovation Center in St. Paul, Minn., to present their final solutions to a panel of judges. The winning young scientist will win $25,000, a trip from Discovery Student Adventures, and the title of “America’s Top Young Scientist.”
Chaluvadi enjoys playing music, but also finds time for Lego Robotics in his free time, having won the Science Innovation Award at the World Lego Robotics Tournament in Florida in 2012. He eventually wants to become a biomedical engineer because he enjoys overcoming challenges and excels at math and science.
Kasturi enjoys working on web programming, writing code and building hardware. He is also interested in filmmaking and often uses FanFiction to help him learn how to tell a story to others.
The Texas State Merit winner of Discovery Young Scientist Challenge 2012, Sil wants to be a scientist in the future. However, she is artistic in her free time, having won several art competitions.
Source: IndiaWest