The Mind Power Times

When you hear “science fair,” do homemade volcanoes and paper mache solar systems come to mind?

The Google Science Fair is a different animal entirely.

The company’s second annual science fair was held yesterday at Google HQ in Mountain View, Calif. Students from around the world were invited to submit their science projects digitally, and 15 outstanding entries were selected based on criteria ranging from hypotheses to experiment design and data collection.

The finalists presented their projects yesterday, with winners selected in each of three age groups — 13-14, 15-16 and 17-18 — as well as a grand prize winner.

This year, one of Google’s science fair partners, Scientific American magazine, also selected a project to receive the Science in Action award. According to Google’s competition details, this award was reserved for an entrant whose project addressed a social, environmental or health issue and could make a practical difference.

The winners were announced in a livestream last night at 8:30 PST.

Bohnke Mahlalela and Sakhiwe Shongwe (Swaziland) were given the Science in Action award for their entry titled “Unique Simplified Hydroponic For Swaziland Poor Subsistence Farmers.” The boys developed a Unique Simplified Hydroponics Method (USHM) that utilizes local waste organic matter to aid in crop growth. Both of the boys’s families are already using the method successfully.

This was the first time either boy had left his village in Swaziland. The Google Chromebooks each received during the finalist round of the competition literally tripled the amount of computers that had previously existed in their village — one.

Jonah Kohn (USA) took the prize for the 13-14 group with his project “Good Vibrations: Improving the Music Experience For People with Hearing Loss Using Multi-Frequency Tactile Sound.” Kohn created a device that converts sound into tactile vibrations.

Iván Hervías Rodríguez, Marcos Ochoa and Sergio Pascual (Spain) won the 15-16 category with their study of the microscopic life in fresh water, entitled “La Vida Oculta del Agua (The Secret Life of Water).”

But it was 17-year-old Brittany Wenger (USA) who stole the show, winning both her age category and the grand prize with her project “Global Neural Network Cloud Service for Breast Cancer.” Wenger developed an application that compares individual test results to a data-set stored in the cloud, allowing doctors to diagnose/asses tumors using a minimally-invasive procedure.

Not only did Wenger score an internship with one of Google’s partner organizations, but she also took home $50,000 in scholarship money from Google and a 10-day trip to the Galapagos Islands furnished by National Geographic.

Those interested in entering Google Science Fair 2013 can register here to receive information.

Read more: http://mashable.com/2012/07/24/google-science-fair-winners/