American students win a $ 100,000 science prize

Kensen Shi, a 17-year-old 12-year-old A&M Consolidated, Texas, USA has won a $ 100,000 prize by building a computer algorithm that helps robots navigate through obstacles.

This algorithm has many useful applications, such as the development of unmanned vehicle technology.

Siemens Fund announced the award of annual science competition to high school students in Washington on December 4, according to the Associated Press. Shi, the author of the algorithm, said it could be applied to both robots working in factories and in video game technology.

Kensen Shi (right) during the awards ceremony - (Photo: AP)

The team award was awarded by the Siemens Foundation to the student trio at George W. Hewlett High School High School in Hewlett, New York for its work on studying a metabolite protein. Three teammates, Jeremy Appelbaum, William Gil and Allen Shin, both 17 years old and 12th graders, will share a prize of $ 100,000.

There were six individuals and six teams to the finals this year after winning at regional competitions.

Jiayi Peng, 17, a 12th grader at Horace Greeley High School, Chappaqua, New York, received the second individual award with a simulation and study of neural neural networks in the brain. Peng is also the only female student to reach the final in the personal category.

The second prize went to Daniel Fu and Patrick Tan from Indiana, with the development of new techniques for network analysis of genes and proteins in the body more easily. Two students, 16 years old and 11th grade, got the above idea after watching the fictional film that produced 2010 Inception about sleep and dreams.

Siemens Fund is the unit in charge of charity and social activities of Siemens USA, a branch of the German industrial corporation Siemens AG. Siemens started the competition in 1998. This year there were more than 1,500 science projects of high school students all over the US attending the competition.