Latest news with #JuniorScienceandHumanitiesSymposium
Yahoo
26-05-2025
- Science
- Yahoo
A 17-year-old designed a cheaper, more efficient drone. The Department of Defense just awarded him $23,000 for it.
Cooper Taylor, 17, aims to revolutionize the drone industry with a new design. Taylor designed a motor-tilting mechanism to lower manufacturing cost and increase efficiency. His innovation won awards at science competitions adding up to $23,000. Cooper Taylor is only 17 years old, but he's already trying to revolutionize the drone industry. Taylor has spent the last year optimizing a type of drone that's being used more and more in agriculture, disaster relief, wildlife conservation, search-and-rescue efforts, and medical deliveries. His design makes the drone more efficient, customizable, and less expensive to construct, he says. He's built six prototypes where he 3D-printed every piece of hardware, programmed the software, and even soldered the control circuit board. He says building his drone cost one-fifth the price of buying a comparable machine, which sells for several thousand dollars. Taylor told Business Insider that he hopes "if you're a first responder or a researcher or an everyday problem solver, you can have access to this type of drone." His innovation won him an $8,000 scholarship in April at the Junior Science and Humanities Symposium, funded by the Department of Defense. Then, on May 16, he received an even bigger scholarship of $15,000 from the US Navy, which he won after presenting his research at the Regeneron International Science and Engineering Fair. "Ultimately having people in STEM careers is a matter of national security," Winnie Boyle, the senior director of competitions at the National Science Teaching Association, which administers JSHS, told BI. Even though most students who compete won't end up working in the military, she added, "we as the community will still benefit from the research that they're doing." It all started when Taylor's little sister got a drone, and he was disappointed to see that it could only fly for about 30 minutes before running out of power. He did some research and found that a vertical take-off and landing (VTOL) drone would last longer. This type of drone combines the multi-rotor helicopter style with the fixed wings of an airplane, making it extremely versatile. It lifts off as a helicopter, then transitions into plane mode. That way it can fly further than rotors alone could take it, which was the drawback to Taylor's sister's drone. Unlike a plane-style drone, though, it doesn't need a runway and it can hover with its helicopter rotors. The problem is that VTOL drones are very expensive. As Taylor learned more about them, though, he realized he could improve a key inefficiency and maybe drastically reduce their cost. VTOL drones use helicopter-style rotors to lift off straight from the ground, but once airborne, the motors running those rotors turn off and the drone switches to a plane-style motor to travel horizontally. Motors are some of the most expensive parts of a drone, Taylor said, so having some motors sit idle during flight is "a big waste of cost and a big waste of energy." He wanted to solve this problem by designing a motor that could start out helicopter-style for liftoff, then tilt back to become an airplane-style motor. That's not a new concept. Aerospace companies have tinkered with tilting rotors for decades, according to David Handelman, a senior roboticist at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory. However, Taylor designed his rotor-tilting drone to be completely 3D-printed and completely modular. A user can pop the tail and wings out of their sockets and replace them with any custom appendages. Similarly, a port for cameras or scientific instruments leaves room for customization. The cost savings come from the fact that his drone uses fewer motors, but the modular nature means users could upgrade or replace parts of the drone for a lower cost than buying a whole new drone. Handelman, who mentored the high schooler, told BI in an email that Taylor's drone "could appeal to users who need a versatile platform but can't afford large or complex systems." Taylor spent an entire summer solving this VTOL problem. "It was a wonderful summer, really focused," Taylor said. "I'd wake up, I'd go into my basement, I'd work on the drone, I'd look outside, and it's 12 a.m." When he hit a barrier in his knowledge of coding, design, or circuitry, he would look for advice in online forums or take a relevant course on the website Udemy. His first three prototypes crashed. One of them soared 50 feet up and then face planted. "That sort of hurt. That's a few hundred hours right there," Taylor said. Each flight and crash revealed a problem he needed to fix until, finally, the fourth drone flew and touched down in one piece. "I actually love doing this," Taylor said. "It's so much fun for me." Taylor's latest prototype weighs about 6 pounds with a wingspan a little over 4 feet. He's flown it for up to 15 minutes at a time, but he has calculated that at the rate it uses power it should last for 105 minutes cruising at 45 mph. He doesn't want to push those limits just yet though. "Cooper brought both curiosity and discipline to the project, working at a level I usually see in strong college students," Handelman said. "The fact that he got the aircraft flying is a testament to his persistence, creativity, and problem-solving ability." Now Taylor is building his seventh iteration of the drone. Eventually, he wants to make it small enough to remove the wings and fit it in a backpack. This summer, though, the high schooler says he'll be working on a different drone project through a program with the Reliable Autonomous Systems Lab at MIT. Read the original article on Business Insider
Business Insider
26-05-2025
- Science
- Business Insider
A 17-year-old designed a cheaper, more efficient drone. The Department of Defense just awarded him $23,000 for it.
Cooper Taylor is only 17 years old, but he's already trying to revolutionize the drone industry. Taylor has spent the last year optimizing a type of drone that's being used more and more in agriculture, disaster relief, wildlife conservation, search-and-rescue efforts, and medical deliveries. His design makes the drone more efficient, customizable, and less expensive to construct, he says. He's built six prototypes where he 3D-printed every piece of hardware, programmed the software, and even soldered the control circuit board. He says building his drone cost one-fifth the price of buying a comparable machine, which sells for several thousand dollars. Taylor told Business Insider that he hopes "if you're a first responder or a researcher or an everyday problem solver, you can have access to this type of drone." His innovation won him an $8,000 scholarship in April at the Junior Science and Humanities Symposium, funded by the Department of Defense. Then, on May 16, he received an even bigger scholarship of $15,000 from the US Navy, which he won after presenting his research at the Regeneron International Science and Engineering Fair. "Ultimately having people in STEM careers is a matter of national security," Winnie Boyle, the senior director of competitions at the National Science Teaching Association, which administers JSHS, told BI. Even though most students who compete won't end up working in the military, she added, "we as the community will still benefit from the research that they're doing." A drone that blends plane and helicopter It all started when Taylor's little sister got a drone, and he was disappointed to see that it could only fly for about 30 minutes before running out of power. He did some research and found that a vertical take-off and landing (VTOL) drone would last longer. This type of drone combines the multi-rotor helicopter style with the fixed wings of an airplane, making it extremely versatile. It lifts off as a helicopter, then transitions into plane mode. That way it can fly further than rotors alone could take it, which was the drawback to Taylor's sister's drone. Unlike a plane-style drone, though, it doesn't need a runway and it can hover with its helicopter rotors. The problem is that VTOL drones are very expensive. As Taylor learned more about them, though, he realized he could improve a key inefficiency and maybe drastically reduce their cost. VTOL drones use helicopter-style rotors to lift off straight from the ground, but once airborne, the motors running those rotors turn off and the drone switches to a plane-style motor to travel horizontally. Motors are some of the most expensive parts of a drone, Taylor said, so having some motors sit idle during flight is "a big waste of cost and a big waste of energy." He wanted to solve this problem by designing a motor that could start out helicopter-style for liftoff, then tilt back to become an airplane-style motor. That's not a new concept. Aerospace companies have tinkered with tilting rotors for decades, according to David Handelman, a senior roboticist at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory. However, Taylor designed his rotor-tilting drone to be completely 3D-printed and completely modular. A user can pop the tail and wings out of their sockets and replace them with any custom appendages. Similarly, a port for cameras or scientific instruments leaves room for customization. The cost savings come from the fact that his drone uses fewer motors, but the modular nature means users could upgrade or replace parts of the drone for a lower cost than buying a whole new drone. Handelman, who mentored the high schooler, told BI in an email that Taylor's drone "could appeal to users who need a versatile platform but can't afford large or complex systems." If you crash at first, try, try again Taylor spent an entire summer solving this VTOL problem. "It was a wonderful summer, really focused," Taylor said. "I'd wake up, I'd go into my basement, I'd work on the drone, I'd look outside, and it's 12 a.m." When he hit a barrier in his knowledge of coding, design, or circuitry, he would look for advice in online forums or take a relevant course on the website Udemy. His first three prototypes crashed. One of them soared 50 feet up and then face planted. "That sort of hurt. That's a few hundred hours right there," Taylor said. Each flight and crash revealed a problem he needed to fix until, finally, the fourth drone flew and touched down in one piece. "I actually love doing this," Taylor said. "It's so much fun for me." Taylor's latest prototype weighs about 6 pounds with a wingspan a little over 4 feet. He's flown it for up to 15 minutes at a time, but he has calculated that at the rate it uses power it should last for 105 minutes cruising at 45 mph. He doesn't want to push those limits just yet though. "Cooper brought both curiosity and discipline to the project, working at a level I usually see in strong college students," Handelman said. "The fact that he got the aircraft flying is a testament to his persistence, creativity, and problem-solving ability." Now Taylor is building his seventh iteration of the drone. Eventually, he wants to make it small enough to remove the wings and fit it in a backpack. This summer, though, the high schooler says he'll be working on a different drone project through a program with the Reliable Autonomous Systems Lab at MIT.
Associated Press
28-04-2025
- Science
- Associated Press
Exceptional Young Scientists Awarded Scholarships and Awards at the 63rd Annual National Junior Science and Humanities Symposium
CHANTILLY, Va.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Apr 28, 2025-- Junior Science and Humanities Symposium (JSHS), the nation's premier showcase for high school science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) research, proudly announces the 2025 winners of the 63 rd National JSHS competition. JSHS is sponsored by the Department of Defense (DoD) and administered by the National Science Teaching Association. This year's National JSHS event took place April 22-26 at the Westfields Marriott Washington Dulles in Chantilly, Virginia. The event welcomed 239 of the brightest high school STEM students from across the country, their teachers, and JSHS university partners. Esteemed judging panels of scientists from the Department of Defense selected the top presenters in each of the eight categories. 'Each year, the students at JSHS redefine the possibilities in STEM,' said Winnie Boyle, Senior Director of Competitions, NSTA. 'Their groundbreaking research and unwavering curiosity inspire us all, and we are honored to support their academic journeys with scholarships and awards.' The National JSHS competition awarded 48 national winners, selected from students who first presented their original research at one of 49 regional symposia held at universities and colleges across the U.S., Puerto Rico, and DoDEA schools worldwide. The top five students from each region were invited to compete at the National JSHS event as national finalists. Of these five, the top two finalists competed in oral presentations for the chance to win scholarships ranging from $4,000-$12,000 and the remaining three finalists competed in the poster competition for a chance to win cash awards. In total, the National JSHS event awarded $192,000 in scholarships and $10,800 in cash awards to the national winners. 'JSHS is a testament to the creativity and determination of young researchers nationwide. It is an honor to celebrate these bright young minds as they push the boundaries of scientific discovery and innovation. Congratulations to this year's national winners, whose hard work and passion for research are commendable. We look forward to seeing the impact they will have on the future of science and technology,' said NSTA Interim Chief Executive Officer Bob Lay. Abstract submissions for the 2024-2025 JSHS competition will open in the fall. For more information on JSHS, visit 1 st Place Oral Presentations: earning $12,000 scholarships Vocalyze: A Deep Learning Approach to Detecting Major Depressive Disorder (MDD) and Tracking Treatment Efficacy via Vocal Acoustic Inflections and Sentiment Analysis Multi-Color Magneto-Fluorescent Nanoarchitectures for the Targeted Identification of Exosomes of Triple Negative Breast Cancer Physics-Informed Machine Learning for Many-Objective Generative Design BeeMind AI: Development of an Artificial Intelligence-Based System to Assess Honeybee Health, Behavior, and Nutrient Effects Turf Trouble: Does The DEET In Bug Repellent Really Kill Grass? Year II AI on Edge: Novel Post-Training Quantization for Education Applications ParkinSense: A Telehealth Toolkit for Quantitative Analysis of Motor Symptoms in Parkinson's Disease Revolutionizing Turbulence Studies: Novel Low-Cost Zero Mean-Flow Chamber Design and Physics-Informed Tensor Basis Neural Network 2 nd Place Oral Presentations: earning $8,000 scholarships Characterizing the RyR2-Mediated Cardiac Pathophysiology of COVID-19 in Rodent Models ICEFAB-Nano: An Integrated Computational-Experimental Framework to Accelerate the Development of Highly Biofunctional Nanotherapeutics for Healthy and Cancerous Applications Next-Generation VTOL Drones: A Breakthrough in Tilt Mechanism and Modular Design for Optimization and Accessibility Investigating the Influence of Coal Ash Heavy Metal Leachate on Thyroid Hormone Concentration, Hormone Receptor Gene Expression, and Spectral Sensitivity in Danio Rerio The Neurobiology of Voluntary Exercise: A Novel Approach to Alleviate Chemobrain by Promoting Hippocampal Neurogenesis Multi-Branch Temporal-Spectral LSTM-CNN in Deepfake Audio Detection Early Detection of Critical Salmonella Cases for Pre-Emptive Treatment via Novel Biomarkers discovered through Protein Domain Analysis and Machine Learning A Novel Method to Analyze Thermonuclear Explosions in Four Binary Star Systems Using NASA's High Time Resolution TESS Data 3 rd Place Oral Presentations: earning $4,000 scholarships Decoding ASXL3: A Novel Biomarker and Treatment for Neurodevelopmental Disorders Combating Alzheimer's Disease: Design and Synthesis of a Novel Drug Molecule for Targeted Metal Chelation Therapy Mitigation of Pressure Injuries: Inertial Wearable and Computer Vision Approaches A Novel Method of Water Purification: Optimizing Foam Fractionation for Effective Broad-Spectrum Removal of DBP and DBP Precursors in Chlorinated Drinking Water Effects of Epigallocatechin Gallate (EGCG) and Piperine Compounds on the Regeneration of D. Tigrina Identifying Key Factors to Improve Autism Spectrum Disorder Diagnosis with Machine LearningWater World Exoplanet Atmospheric and Spectral Data Analysis via Thermodynamic Modeling and Unsupervised Machine Learning 1 st Place Poster Presentations 2 nd Place Poster Presentations 3 rd Place Poster Presentations View source version on CONTACT: Winnie S. Boyle 703.312.0387 [email protected] KEYWORD: UNITED STATES NORTH AMERICA VIRGINIA INDUSTRY KEYWORD: SCIENCE PUBLIC POLICY/GOVERNMENT OTHER SCIENCE DEFENSE WHITE HOUSE/FEDERAL GOVERNMENT OTHER DEFENSE PRIMARY/SECONDARY EDUCATION SOURCE: National Science Teaching Association Copyright Business Wire 2025. PUB: 04/28/2025 09:15 AM/DISC: 04/28/2025 09:14 AM
