High Schooler Is Awarded $100,000 For Research

wired_LAIN writes "A teenager from Oklahoma was awarded $100,000 in the Intel Science Talent Search competition for building an inexpensive and accurate spectrograph that can identify the specific characteristics of different kinds of molecules. While normal spectrographs can cost between $20,000 and $100,000 to build, her spectrograph cost less than $500. The 40 finalists' projects were judged by a panel of 12 scientists, all well established in their respective fields. Among the judges were Vera Rubin, who proved Dark Matter, and Andrew Yeager, one of the pioneers of stem cell research."

Comments

I bet!

[guysmilee]

I bet! Mom & Dad never helped at all!

Re:I bet!

[rifter]

I bet! Mom & Dad never helped at all!

I honestly don't see why this is flamebait. It could have been said in a better way, especially since it seems to have been misunderstood. It is important for people to understand that parents and social/economic status matter when it comes to academic and scientific achievement, especially in the type of school system we have. That's not to say that individual effort is not needed in the more positive cases or that it cannot overcome the negative cases. But it is true that the more tools you have in life and the better and more stable your learning environment is the easier it is to achieve something. It does not mean that this person's achievement was any less spectacular, just as it is still awesome that John Nash was doing Calculus at age 7 even though the fact his parents were academics who encouraged their son and exposed him to everything he seemed able to handle or have an interest in when he showed interest.

John Nash growing up in an abusive home where no textbooks were available and learning was frowned upon would have a tough row to hoe even as a genius that he was. He would probably be able to achieve a lot because of his drive and intellectual fortitude, but you never know. Not only would he have to overcome the negative aspects of his upbringing, he would not have some of the formative experiences that led him on the path he ended up on. He might not learn to read at an early age because neither his parents nor the public school would encourage reading at an early age or advancing in that skill. He also might not therefore have read _Men_of_Mathematics_ which was the book that most inspired him to become a mathemetician. Perhaps between a bad upbringing and the mental problems he had, he would have ended up in that negative feedback loop so many left behind children find themselves in, where the outside world (especially school, their parents, and other students) gives them a constant reinforcement of the idea that they are "no good" or substandard and will never achieve anything, and their own struggles, when they find the strength to struggle, seem to reinforce it as well and lend fodder to the fire until they either lapse into a kind of apathy toward achievement or take the further course of attempting to achieve something completely negative (addict, prostitute, thug, etc).

Children need encouragement and guidance to grow properly and it is proven that the more successful children in school tend also to be those students whose parents are most involved in their education, and vice versa. Parents that don't have or take time for working with their kids or for whatever reason don't give the right kind of structure and experience for a healthy childhood will tend to have children with problems in school. This is what educators have been telling us, too. I think reform is necessary for the system, and I know parents are resistant to any suggestion that they could have anything to do with problems they have with their children, but consider the fact that this is the portion of the equation parents are most able to change.

It is obvious to me that whereas this person was clearly gifted they also had parents who supported her endeavours. In fact she is quoted in TFA:

Masterman said she has been interested in science "ever since I was little. I can't remember ever not being interested." She credits her parents with encouraging her.

Poorly stated I will give you, but what the poster said was true and was probably not meant as flamebait. It does not seem like flamebait to me.

This nation...

[Anonymous Coward]

Needs a thousand more students like her! Way to go!

Re:This nation...

[MillionthMonkey]

I can practically hear the shipping containers being filled in Beijing with $199 combination laser pointer/spectrographs as we speak!

I have to remember to pick one up at Costco when we go next week.

Re:This nation...

[MillionthMonkey]

Well I would have said "Tianjin" instead but I knew my post would never rise above a 2 with these Americans moderating.

Re:This nation...

[Seq]

I have to remember to pick one up at Costco when we go next week.

What are you going to do with a dozen spectrographs?

Re:This nation...

[shbazjinkens]

I know a guy that went to her high school. He was expelled and served with terrorism charges when a rocket demonstration went bad and set a field on fire. School officials claimed he was trying to burn the school down?
 
With schools like that, Oklahoma can't lose! I laud her for her devotion to science, because I know exactly what kind of barriers and punishments there are for that kind of devotion here. Until that changes, girls and boys like her will continue to be extremely rare.

Re:This nation...

[Drawkcab]

The word "shipping", despite its etymology, no longer exclusively refers to seafaring vessels.

Re:This nation...

[Ced_Ex]

Beijing is landlocked? What's that suppose to mean? Just because I ship with UPS, doesn't mean they sail up to my door to pick up my package.

Okay can we see the project?

[LWATCDR]

I want to see how she did it.

Re:Okay can we see the project?

[quanminoan]

This link provides a little more information.

dark matter

[Hemogoblin]

Among the judges were Vera Rubin , who proved Dark Matter
Nitpick: That should probably read "provided evidence for the existence dark matter."

Re:dark matter

[itamblyn]

This isn't true though, typos aside. She saw a distribution of velocities in galaxies that was not consistent with the visible mass. This means that either there is extra mass in those galaxies, or the laws that govern their motion are not fully understood. She provides no evidence one way or the other. The existence of dark matter is still an open question (though people are leaning towards it).

Re:dark matter

[SlashSquatch]

Dark matter is proven only to be a questionable accounting practice.

The existence of dark matter is proven only to be a very nice way to invoke feelings of mystery in the hearts of grant application reviewers.

"Awarded" or "Paid"?

[timeOday]

Does she keep the rights to her invention, or does somebody else get ownership of them? This sounds like a potentially valuable invention.

Re:"Awarded" or "Paid"?

[Anonymous Coward]

Valuable in the same way a $10-60 microscope works more or less the same way as a $2,000 one with Zeiss lenses. Or a profilometer being made from $200 in parts. iow, she didn't really invent anything, but put together a device for cheaper.

I don't disagree the $100,000 commercial devices could be made substantially cheaper, probably 10-fold. But most of those devices are calibrated, certified back to NIST metrological standards, include sweeping warranty and support, and probably a software library for interpretation. Don't forget to add in expertise, time, field testing, manufacturing overhead, and profit.

In fact, most scientific instruments, if broken down, are rather simple. NMR, interferometers, lock-in amplifiers, etc. are not that hard to put together if that's *all* you are doing. But to do it yourself, is labor and expertise expensive, and that's really what you are paying for--convenience. You want to do research. You don't want to be reinventing the wheel (not that there is not value in that, as understanding the tools helps a lot esp. in formulating better tools and understanding the limits of research).

The reason her device is cool is that it's no small feat to put together, not the invention of it, but the creativity in reduplicating something that isn't really easy to do. One website I had thought about putting up was a wiki on how to produce various scientific instrumentation much as she did with this one particular one, but time is a constraint for me, and surprisingly MAKE magazine seems to be more and more encroaching on covering these sorts of things as time goes along.

Anyways, I'm not trying to minimize her accomplishment, but it isn't exactly a new invention.

Re:"Awarded" or "Paid"?

[QuasiEvil]

As a former Westinghouse STS finalist (back in 1995, before it became the Intel STS), you get to keep all rights. The cash is just the prize for being top in the nation. It literally is just prize money, or at least was back then. I wouldn't think things have changed that much, as some of the research I was competing with had applications far more valuable than $100k. There's also a lot of other perks - academic offers and scholarships to all sorts of interesting institutions, trips, resume padding, etc.

Not bad

[L. VeGas]

That's okay, I guess. Personally, I really liked the totally rad volcano that used baking soda and vinegar to actually erupt!

Dollar dollars

[HTH NE1]

The summary is incorrect. The actual cost, as stated in the article, is less than $1000, which is a bit more than $500.

Actually, the summery said, "her spectrograph cost less than $500 dollars". Have you any idea how much a 500-dollar dollar is worth? Her spectrograph costs less than at least two of them!

Re:Dollar dollars

[HTH NE1]

I wrote:

summery

Aw crap.

Re:Dollar dollars

[interiot]

You aren't familiar with 500-dollar dollars? You get them from an ATM machine by punching in your PIN number. Just make sure the machine is plugged into AC current, or it won't work.

Re:Dollar dollars

[GundamFan]

They had an interview on NPR the other day (Wednesday or Thursday on All Things Considered if you wish to look up the podcast) with the winner, she said that she spent around $300 but with the parts that she already had (a digital camera for one) and a few donations she received the estimated total cost of such a device would be around $1000.

cheaper space probes

[mastershake_phd]

Strap this thing on a rocket. $500 million to send a probe to mars? I bet we could do it for $250,000, maybe be less if it leaves on a tuesday.

Re:Read the article...

[keepingmyheaddown]

No sir, if you had RT REAL FA http://www.sciserv.org/sts/66sts/winners.asp then you would know it cost $300.

Other winners

[jotok]

From the Intel Science Talent Search website:

Second Place: John Pardon, 17, of Chapel Hill, N.C., solved a classical open problem in differential geometry
Third Place: Dmitry Vaintrob, 18, of Eugene, Ore., proved that loop homology and Hochschild cohomology coincide for an important class of spaces
Fourth Place: Catherine Schlingheyde, 17, of Oyster Bay, N.Y., for her research on microRNA repression
Fifth Place: Rebecca Kaufman, 17, of Croton-on-Hudson, N.Y., for her study of the effects of male hormones in a model of schizophrenia
Sixth Place: Gregory Brockman, 18, of Thompson, N.D., for his mathematics project that provided a thorough analysis of Ducci sequences
Seventh Place: Megan Blewett, 17, of Madison, N.J., for her analysis of a protein that may be implicated in multiple sclerosis and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis
Eighth Place: Daniel Handlin, 18, of Lincroft, N.J., for developing an accurate, low-cost method of determining the position of geo-stationary Earth-orbit (GEO) satellites
Ninth Place: Meredith MacGregor, 18, of Boulder, Colo., for her research on the fluid dynamics of the "Brazil Nut Effect"
Tenth Place: Emma Call, 18, of Baltimore, Md., for the fabrication of 3-D microcubes

I'm amazed at what these kids were able to accomplish. How much support did they have? What schools do they attend? How much money were they granted to accomplish their research?

In any case, I have two thoughts on this:
One, good teachers and money can't make stupid kids smart, but they sure as hell can enable really smart kids to shine. I wonder how this ties in with Bill Gates' recent announcements concerning the state of science and math education in American schools.

Two, I notice a complete lack of representation by the "soft" sciences. Is it because the people writing the grants share the same disdain for disciplines that lack explanatory power as everyone else, or is it because it's easier to set up a biology program than a sociology program? I suspect a little of both--you probably need far more social context than an 18-year-old will have to pursue studies of voter demographics (not to mention the data acq is probably beyond their capabilities).

But some of that context used to be handled by education as well--you had to read the classics, you had to study some philosophy, you had to know history. My aero engineer friend has really never done any of that, so he's an engineer who doesn't know what "empiricism" means. Is this also a failing by our educational system? Isn't such education necessary to be a good researcher?

Re:Other winners

[CommandNotFound]

...Anyone know if there's a "Loop Homology and Hochschild Cohomology for Dummies" out yet?

Holy cow, these kids are off the charts! And I was impressed with the GW-BASIC database I wrote in high school. It looks like something Homer Simpson built compared to that...

Re:Other winners

[jcgf]

But some of that context used to be handled by education as well--you had to read the classics, you had to study some philosophy, you had to know history. My aero engineer friend has really never done any of that, so he's an engineer who doesn't know what "empiricism" means. Is this also a failing by our educational system? Isn't such education necessary to be a good researcher?

It goes the other way too. Ask a philosophy student to explain lift and drag and see how far you get.

Re:Other winners

[i_should_be_working]

So 6 out of the top 10 are females. What the hell happens after high school? Maybe things are just getting better with this generation.

Unrelated. Usually with some high level math theory title I understand the individual words by themselves, but not all together. But that 3rd place title. Holy crap. 3 words I've never even heard of.

Re:Other winners

[apathy maybe]

Two, I notice a complete lack of representation by the "soft" sciences. Is it because the people writing the grants share the same disdain for disciplines that lack explanatory power as everyone else, or is it because it's easier to set up a biology program than a sociology program? I suspect a little of both--you probably need far more social context than an 18-year-old will have to pursue studies of voter demographics (not to mention the data acq is probably beyond their capabilities).

Perhaps because "soft sciences" are real sciences. Sure they may use scientific method, but they sure as hell don't have the same accuracy. They haven't yet accumulated the same amount of data as the "hard" (or I prefer real) sciences.

I mean, take Marxism for example. Historical materialism is claimed to be scientific, it may well use scientific method, but it sure as hell ain't science.

Re:Other winners

[indigest]

You will find that there is an interesting correlation every year between the Research Science Institute participants and the Intel STS winners. RSI is a program that is run in cooperation with MIT where high school students spend their summer before senior year doing research with MIT professors. Intel has even noticed the connection and they have a page on it. Out of the list of top ten Intel STS winners, the following were at RSI in 2006:

Mary Masterman (1)
Dmitry Vaintrob (3)
Megan Blewett (7)

Pretty good for a program that only accepts 50 American students (IIRC). The usual suspects used to show up as Lucent Global Science Scholars as well, but that program was unfortunately ended in 2005.

In my experience, the key to high school and undergraduate research is a teacher/professor that pushes the student far beyond what he or she knows. A high school student just doesn't have enough experience to come up with truly groundbreaking research. However, amazing things can happen when the teacher/professor exposes the student to advanced concepts which their minds need to struggle to understand. The student will often approach the problem in a different way then the researchers in the field, which will sometimes lead to a new and unexpected result.

The main difficulty is that it can be really frustrating and demoralizing for a student to be in a place where they have to struggle to understand a concept. I think a lot of high schoolers and undergrads get discouraged when they have difficulty understanding a concept. Educators just need to keep that in mind and reassure students that the learning process is an important component of doing good research.

Re:Other winners

[wired_LAIN]

In general, most of the students came from magnet schools that you have to test into. These schools sometimes have relationships with local universities or labs, so there are research progams avaliable to the students. I think the average timeframe for the research was about a year, with some people spending more time (the 7th place winner spent 4 years on her research!) and some people spending less. Also, several students worked completely on their own (like the ninth place winner, she built and concieved her project in her basement). IMO those are the most impressive projects. As for the "soft" sciences, in the top forty projects, there were two behavioral and social sciences projects. I think the reason why they didn't win isn't because of the quality of their projects, but the rigourous judging that all the finalists had to go through. They made it clear that they weren't just looking for the best project, but future leaders in science. We had four interview sessions, and the judges also observed us when we were presenting our projects at the NAS to the public.

Overview of her Project

[Somegeek]

From her biography on sciserv.org:

"Her Littrow spectrograph splits light, like a prism, and uses a camera to record the resulting Raman spectra - a specific vibrational fingerprint of the molecular compound being investigated. Using a laser as her light source, Mary tested several household objects and solvents and compared her results to published wave numbers. Despite the shortcomings of the inexpensive laser, she found she could make relatively accurate wavelength measurements with her homemade device."

Whatever...

[Udigs]

Gee, I built a mass spectromoter at my High School science fair 12 years ago. My family didn't have 500 bucks to blow on a science fair project so I had to do it for under $50 and whatever handouts I could get for free from local college professors. Funny, all I got was first place at the county science fair. Though, 100,000 bucks would have been much nicer, and actually paid for the second year of the ivy league school I had to drop out of because I couldn't afford it.

Re:Whatever...

[Anonymous Coward]

waaah. I built a proton synchrotron in my basement when I was in first grade but my Mom broke it when she was doing laundry, now I have to work at Taco Bell!

Re:Whatever...

[LordPhantom]

You, sir, have a bright future as a mid-level DC Comics villain! Congrats!

Re:The appearance thing aside...

[huckda]

a couple of years?

$100,000 will get you all the way through your masters now days. Assuming you can maintain some semblance of a GPA.

Re:Accurate? Is it Calibrated?

[644bd346996]

She measured the spectra of known household substances and got numbers that fit with published data. That is a decent basis for calling it accurate, especially when you consider that her design can probably be improved quite a bit without making it much more expensive. A mass-produced, quality-controlled spectrograph based off her design could revolutionize the way such devices are used, because they are so cheap.

fascinating gender differences in the prizes

[retrosurf]

All the boys worked on mathematics based tasks, and
all the girls were working on physical sciences, or
at least more applied problems.

Well, there's that one well rounded kid that applied
mathematics to the triangulation of geosynchronous
satellites, but the other guys were heavy math geeks.

I thought it said "Spirograph"

[cheeto]

... and thought to myself, "$500 would build you one hell of a Spirograph, but your older brother is still just going to throw the gears at you like a ninja star."

Re:After Watching Idiocracy....

[adavies42]

You're kidding, right? Some people are smarter than others. It might not fit your notion of "fairness", but it's the way the world is. Cope.

Re:They've been building them for 500 bucks for ye

[imsabbel]

Well, in fact its not that easy.
For example, your cheap diode laser is temperature dependent. As the (anti)stokes raman lines are energy shifts from the baseline, using a normal laser will give you different callibrations for different energies. So you want a temperature stabilized one (e.g. thermoelectric cooling with feedback loop).
Now you got 1k instead of 500.
Same goes for the prisma. You really want a grating, for good results. $2k.

Then every single one has to be calibrated and tested.
And then you actually want to make profit.

The barely existing economy of scale doesnt really help much.

Re:I find this ironic

[exp(pi*sqrt(163))]

It's worse thab that. By spending time doing stem cell research he has sacrificed time spent sowing his wild oats and has therefore prevented kids from even coming into existence. Now that's evil.

Re:The Important Question

[Otter]

didn't take long for you idiots to start objectifying her and making critical comments on her appearance.

In fairness, the OP was observing that her intellectual accomplishment is "hot".

Re:Bah!

[ZombieRoboNinja]

I don't know why you assume she doesn't get the patent rights as well. If I were her, I'd use my first installment of that $100 grand to buy myself a good patent attorney and PR person. I think they hang out behind Home Depot in a pickup truck.

Re:That is SO COOL.

[thesandtiger]

Gosh, you participated in a science fair in school? ME TOO!!! I thought I was the only one on slashdot!!!

Say, do you like computers? I know I sure do!

Sorry, just don't often get a chance to poke fun at a 4-digit poster.

Re:The appearance thing aside...

[rifter]

a couple of years?

$100,000 will get you all the way through your masters now days. Assuming you can maintain some semblance of a GPA.

He said at a good University. Granted less expensive schools can actually provide a competitive education but someone like this is probably going to be thinking Princeton or MIT or something, and just about any college in that neck of the woods will put a serious dent in $100,000 pretty fast. Certainly the ones I named would; I think "a couple of years" is about right, considering, and it may in fact be too optimistic depending on how much other cash is involved.

Re:Bah!

[guacamole rocks]

You seem to be neglecting the power of compound interest over the next 40 years. If she can build a spectrograph, she can probably figure out what a safe investment vehicle is.

Re:The real credit goes to the DNA of the parents

[vix86]

I got the parent info from the Winners page. If you read near the end of each paragraph it'll say "The daughter of" or "The son of" and will mention Dr or Drs, if the parents have their Ph.D.

I think it would be hard to argue that genetics played a point in how smart they are. I think in terms of hardware, what really did it was their upbringing. If when they were younger (prior to puberty) they were challenged and encouraged to seek knowledge, think, and explore, its likely their brain was wired more for that kind of stuff (reasoning and logic). Genetics may play some part, but I believe the environment will win out in the end.