2017 National Winners

1st Place Grand Prize (Received iPad and engraved award) – Isabela Perdomo (Norman S. Edelcup/Sunny Isles Beach K-8 – Florida)
2nd Place Grand Prize (Received iPad and engraved award) – Annika Viswesh (Stratford Middle School – California)
3rd Place Grand Prize (Each student received a Samsung Galaxy tablet and engraved award) – (TIE) Elinor Rosen (Brookline Heath School – Massachusetts); Sruthi Mikkilineni (JFK Middle School – California)
4th Place (Received Fitbit and engraved award) – Sofia Tomov (Homeschool – Tennessee)
5th Place (Each student received a Fitbit and engraved award) – (TIE) Srihita Adabala (Brentwood Middle School – Tennessee); Gia Ramos (Saint Johns School – Puerto Rico)

Honorable Mentions (Each honorable mention received an Amazon Echo and an engraved award): 

• Anika Kathuria – (Bridgewater-Raritan Regional Middle School - New Jersey)
• Nivedita Sanghavi – (Evergreen Elementary School - California)
• Asmi Kumar – (Northwestern Middle School - Georgia)
• Michelle Nazareth – (Georgiana Bruce Kirby School - California)
• Krithi Palakodati, Anya Vadayar, Manika Aggarwal – (Canyon Vista Middle School - Texas)
• Sruthi Sankararaman, Sreenidhi Sankararaman – (Rachel Carson Middle School - Virginia)
• Pajaka Lakshmin, Aiko Lozar – (Aviara Oaks Middle School - California)
• Nidhi Mathihalli, Elizabeth Stoiber – (Redwood Middle School - California)
• Akshitha Sahu, Shriya Kankatala, Parnika Ramini – (Smith Middle School - Michigan)
• Aditi Bharti – (Challenger School - California)
• LeiLoni DePew – (Pioneer Ridge Middle School - Kansas)

All finalists received a trophy and certificate at the 2017 ProjectCSGIRLS National Gala.

Finalists' Project Descriptions and Videos

Anika Kathuria

Bridgewater-Raritan Regional Middle School, New Jersey

For my ProjectCSGIRLS creation, I chose the theme “a safer world”. According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics, in 2015, approximately 1% of people 12 years or older experienced at least one violent victimization, and 42% of them experienced at least one serious violent victimization. This means that for every 10,000 people in the United States, 98 of them had experienced a violent criminal act, which is an extremely disturbing number. These statistics are even more alarming for young girls, especially for those below the age of 24, including high school and college girls. I study in a large school district, with almost 2,500 girls in the middle and high school. As per the average statistics in the country, this means that about 24 of us may experience some sort of violent victimization in a year alone! This shocked me and I knew I had to make something which could reduce these numbers and provide an extra layer of protection for me and my friends.

My product is called the Smart Earring, and it combines jewelry with safety. A button attached to an earring backer makes it easy to alert authorities of danger at any time. In order to make a button that can send out a text message, I used an Arduino with a connected ethernet shield. I also used the website Tropo.com to get a phone number for my Arduino to enable sending out text messages. The messages are sent using that website as well. I first coded the Arduino so that any time the code was uploaded, it would send a message to my phone. I then added a few lines of code, as well as some breadboard wiring, so that only when the button is pressed hard, the Arduino sends out a message to my phone. I then attached the button to a back of an earring so that the button on the earring could cause a message to be sent to safety authorities in case of an emergency.

When confronted with a hard situation, there is often no opportunity to dial 911 for help. Having a convenient button on the back of one’s earring will make it easy to inform safety authorities that a criminal act may be going on and help is needed. The pressing of the button could be disguised as an itching of the ear or readjusting of the earring. It will help get the police to the crime scene on time and catch the criminal. Additionally, any person who has a piercing anywhere can use this to help them become a lot more safe. Also, the earring choices for a person using this jewelry are not restricted because an earring backer can be used with all different types of earrings. No matter what a person wants to wear, he/she can still have a way to be safe. I think that my creation will create a safer environment and save a lot of lives

Srihita Adabala

Brentwood Middle School, Tennessee

IoT (Internet of Things) based Wearable technology is a growing engineering revolution in so many areas. So, I decided to incorporate it into my ProjectCSgirls. My innovation is Temp which is an IoT based wearable strap that senses body temperatures through a temperature sensor. Utilizing the Raspberry Pi 3 and DHT 11 temperature sensor, I used the Python program (using Adafruit DHT Sensor Library) and I programmed it to sense the temperatures every 15 seconds(This time limit can be changed at the user’s desire). Once the received temperatures gets above 90 degrees, Raspberry Pi sends an SMS text message to the registered user. The user can connect their phone to receive the Temp Tracker messages and to monitor the historic stats. Even though many people don't see it, heat strokes are a growing problem all across the world. In places such as India, Africa, and even America, some people don’t have access to any type of cooling. They are faced with immense heat and they are not able to do anything about it. To add, many pets and kids are left in cars and outside everywhere, and they are hit with the life-threatening heat. These temperatures can rise in just minutes. Using the Temp Tracker, which is efficient, cost-effective, and convenient, people can be alerted about when they must receive help. This idea can branched out even more by also connecting nearby hospitals and NGAs (volunteer organizations) into letting them know when to respond in need of help. Wearable technology can be very useful to the user and can be very effective in everyday life. Many people have used this in different fields, so I decided to use it on the medical side. I placed my project in the theme of Intelligent Technology because it uses a branch of technology (wearable technology) to take care of a problem. After talking with an AWS (Amazon cloud) correspondent, I worked referencing their programs and IoT technology to program my device. I was able to utilize AWS partner TextMagic API to send the message, which goes through them. As one can see, heat strokes are a developing problem everywhere. Encompassing this device in studies will help many people using it to take care of the problem first hand. 

Elinor Rosen

Brookline Heath School, Massachusetts

Most visually impaired people have walking sticks, but do those sticks really help detect obstacles in unfamiliar environments? The Visually impaired need an affordable technology solution that will help them detect obstacles such as; steps, sidewalks, uneven surface, and holes. Recent computer vision technology could be applied to make visually impaired life safer and the technology solution affordable. I’ve developed a detection system that uses a smartphone, a regular stick for the visually impaired, and a smartphone holder. Assuming the system is relying on an existing stick and smartphone, the only extra cost for the users will be for the smartphone holder cost (~$5).

First, the visually impaired user installs the app on their smartphone. Then the user puts the smartphone on the holder. The user should feel where the home button is and put it on the top (upside down). This is because of the angle that the pictures have to be taken from. Then the user starts walking and occasionally gets close to an obstacle. The algorithm inspects the scene in real-time aimed to detect steps, uneven surfaces, sidewalks, and holes. It detects edges in the images and measures distance to the obstacles. Throughout all of this the app is taking a video of what is going on. If it’s a hole or sidewalk the smartphone would vibrate once. If the app detects stairs or uneven surface, the smartphone would vibrate twice. 

I’ve developed a working prototype in Matlab by using functions from Computer Vision Toolbox (e.g., edge detection and distance measurement). My current work is focused on adding a real-time tracker and training the algorithm on classification of obstacles. My objective is to achieve a high precision in obstacle detection without making it too sensitive to further away objects. Supervised learning approach requires humans to classify the objects in the video providing labeled data “Ground Truth”. Human labeled data is compared with the algorithm classification, and check for accuracy. In order to increase the accuracy I need to identify “Hard Cases” for classification such as shapes that are not steps, sidewalks, or holes on the road. I have created a functional prototype that meets my objectives to detect a set of four key obstacle types. My future directions for development include:

• Detection of a larger range of obstacles.
• The system could be extended into a social network where each user contributes data on obstacles. Over time, this will create a foundation for more accurate obstacle detection (like Waze app but for visually impaired).
• Implementing narration instead of vibration: “Watch out! Steps in 2 feet.”
• Voice recognition and interaction with visually impaired: “SmartStick, is there any bench around here?” >> “Sure. I see a bench 5 feet on your right.”
• Addressing privacy issues: Turning on and off the app is currently available. However, with the ideas to move into cloud computing, it will be important to establish terms and conditions for the service, including privacy issues that should be addressed such as the ability of the user to remove uploaded recording

isabela perdomo

Norman S. Edelcup/Sunny Isles Beach K-8 School, Florida

The inspiration for this project comes from a desire to find a better way to prevent barnacle growth on marine vessels than the current method available.  The most common method for preventing barnacle growth today is to paint the hull of the boat with a paint called anti fouling paint. This paint is made of many toxic materials that are detrimental to the environment.  Anti-fouling paint is a very heavy paint which means it puts extra weight on the boat.  So, the boat’s engine has to put extra effort into pushing the boat through the water. This can also damage the environment.  Not only does anti fouling paint hurt the environment and damage the boat’s engine, it is also very expensive. The price range for a gallon of this paint ranges from $30-$200.  Multiple gallons are typically needed to cover the bottom of a typical boat.
 
For these reasons I am going to try to create a cost effective and an environmentally friendly device that will still do the same or better job at reducing barnacle growth on marine vessels thus making our waters safer and improving Global Health. To do this I have decided to use an ultra-sonic speaker, also known as a Piezo electric speaker. This speaker is meant to produce such high frequencies that an almost perfect human ear would not be able to hear. But how is this speaker able to do this? A regular speaker converts electricity to motion by causing the magnet and coil inside to repel and attract at a certain speed. But to make a higher frequency the speaker must have less mass. So, scientists discovered that a higher frequency could be made by directly sending electricity to a Piezo element with no magnet or coil.  This speaker can produce sounds higher than what the human ear can hear (more than 20,000 Hz). Unlike the study done in year 1, this year three different sized ultra sonic speakers will be tested. In one sample, 15 small Piezo electric speakers will be used, another with 3 medium ones, and the last arrangement will have one large speaker.
 
Four tiles of plexi-glass will be left in the water for two months for each trial.  They will be weighed prior to submerging.  The assigned Piezo electric speaker arrangement will be attached to rectangles of plexi-glass and placed into the canal.  Each Piezo electric speaker is programmed to emit the same frequency. The three arrangements have speakers that will scan through frequencies between 30-40 kHz. The idea of having a speaker that scans through different frequencies came about because there might be a possibility that different organisms stop growing at different frequencies. This was proven to be correct in the study conducted in year 1. There will also be one sample of plexi-glass without a speaker arrangement as a control.  After approximately 2 months, the 4 arrangements of ultrasonic speakers will be weighed and compared to when first placed in the canal. Throughout the experiment the submerged samples will also be visually observed on videotape using a waterproof video camera.

nivedita sanghavi

Evergreen Elementary School, California

The United States offers its citizens one of the most modern emergency response systems in the world. Typically users across the United States invoke emergency response services by dialing 9-1-1 on their phones. The 911 calls are routed by the phone service providers to the nearest 'Public Safety Answering Point' (PSAP). The PSAP is a service which collects the information from the distress call and in turn alerts the proper emergency responders / agencies such as the police, fire department or emergency medical services (EMS). In recent times these crucial emergency systems and services have come under tremendous pressure due to the following

• Higher volume of 911 calls coupled with growth of overall population.
• Declining funding from cash-strapped local counties and states.
• Higher budgets needed to modernize legacy PSAP and 911 call systems

An estimated 240 million calls are made to 911 in the U.S. each year. In many areas, 70% or more calls are originated from wireless devices. This mind boggling volume of calls stretches the emergency systems to the brink that ultimately pushes up the time it takes to respond to incoming requests. It is also estimated that about 15% of 911 calls are made for non-emergencies. While average 911 response times are heavily disputed, the American Police Beat estimates the average response time for an emergency call at about 10 minutes. Imagine not being able to receive critical care or first aid during a time of emergency. Those precious minutes spent waiting for First Responders to arrive on the scene could be the difference between saving the life or resulting in death! I want to help reduce the stress on the over burdened emergency response services and in turn decrease the time it takes for emergency services to arrive when a 911 call is made.

To solve this I have invented a system called Peer-to-Peer Emergency Response System (PePERS). A 911 call initiated via a smartphone will be routed to a conventional PSAP as well as the PePERS system. PePERS utilizes a nationwide network of users who via their smartphones are able to identify other users in need of emergency services and are able to rush to their help before conventional First Responders arrive at the scene.

PePERS will not solve or provide for every type of emergency. PePERS intends to provide immediate First Aid for emergencies. PePERS will

• Help save lives by reducing the amount of time it takes for a 911 caller to receive help. This will especially be the case in rural / less populated areas.
• Reducing the amount of time spent by conventional First Responders on non-emergency calls.
• Increasing awareness of local emergencies to a wider audience and by building a community of users who care for each other in times of crisis.
• Preserving scarce First Responder resources at the state and the county level that can be diverted to better use.