Some of the brightest young minds in the Northwest gathered in Pullman, Washington last weekend for a competition called Imagine Tomorrow.
Four hundred and twenty nine high school students from Montana, Idaho, Oregon and Washington are challenged to reduce the use of fossil fuels and promote clean, renewable energy.
Students researched, tested and built prototypes over the last months and on this day set up displays on the campus of Washington State University. The displays show how their ideas in technology, design, behavior and biofuels could change the planet for the better.
Those ideas included: “The utilization of Peltier and Seebeck effect to innovate the landscape of renewable energy generation.” “Implementation of a carbon-dioxide-based refrigeration system as cogeneration appliance and alternative for halocarbon-based refrigeration systems.” “Manipulating the replication of nannochloropsis with the addition of methane.”
The project titles are sometimes daunting, but the ideas behind them are the bedrock of this competition, founded in 2008 by Washington State University and major corporate sponsors. WSU Honors college dean Grant Norton says his original aim was to encourage Washington high school students in math, science and engineering.
"We were thinking about...ways we could engage, at that time, students in the state of Washington, to think about some of big challenges facing the country in terms of energy technology and sustainability.”
More than 100 judges from industry and higher education listen to student teams present their ideas.
"The first test we did was to recreate Galileo’s incline plane experiment on pinewood derby cars,” one student offered.
Judges are then free to ask questions, like, “What would you change in the approach that you’ve taken?” and offer advice.
“If you develop those programming skills, those are really important skills in the job market,” one judge said.
Missoula’s Sentinel High School brought Montana’s only competitors, fielding three teams with 13 students. Junior Benjamin Lotto’s team looked for a way to cut down the tens-of-thousands of metric tons of paper sent by colleges to recruit students. They designed a one-stop website for college bound high school students and their parents.
“When a student enters in their profile information like academic GPA, class rank, SAT scores and financial need information like parental income, tax returns and things like that, the web site recommends colleges and scholarships the student’s eligible for and can attend,” Lotto said.
Sentinel senior Kasey Leavell’s brainchild put a wind turbine on the roof of a car, which could generate enough energy to save the driver fuel, and money.
“We took a child’s old Barbie bike and converted it into a turbine," Leavell said. "We put sheet metal into the spokes of the tire so that it could actually spin when the car is going.”
Sentinel’s third team designed an app to promote car pooling. Senior Taiga Gamell says companies can use the app to shrink their carbon footprint.
“What this is… is we’re economically incentivizing people to carpool more," Gamell explained.
Sentinel senior Ryan Mason took the time to check out the competition and came away impressed with what he saw.
“I think it’s incredible what students are putting together here," Mason said. "Some of these projects it blows me away that they’re by high school students. It’s really a cool thing to be part of.”
And the judges took notice too. Alison Lauderbach of Boeing says the company takes these ideas to heart.
“We’re hoping that we’ll find some things that we’ll be able to apply within the projects that we’re working on at Boeing," Lauderbach said.
Students get great exposure to potential mentors and some have come away from the competition with job and scholarship offers. Winning teams also take home cash prizes, both for the students and their schools.
