Three 11th grade girls set a record at NASA competition

At the age of 17, three colored girls from a school in Washington DC, the United States excelled in the finals of a prestigious science competition of NASA.

With lead-water filtration system , three 17-year-old girls Mikayla Sharrieff, India Skinner and Bria Snell - both from Banneker High School (Washington DC, USA), have excellently reached the finals of a science-level competition. prestigious high school organized by the US Aerospace Agency (NASA).

This is also the only team of all-color girls to advance so far in this competition.

NASA's competition calls upon students to find creative ways to use space technology in everyday life.

From left to: India Skinner, Mikayla Sharrieff and Bria Snell - (Photo: The Washington Post).

Mikayla Sharrieff, India Skinner and Bria Snell said they had reviewed dozens of ideas but ended up choosing a water purification system because they found that some school taps could not be used due to the risk of lead.

So three girls volunteered for Inclusive Innovation Incubator - a technology lab focused on diversity of human resources and entrepreneurship spirit near Howard University.

The instructor encouraged them to compete and supervised the group on weekends during the time they created the water filter model.

The three girls bought two jars, placing measuring instruments in each to check the purity of the water. In the first vessel, the children put pieces of copper in the water - assuming that copper acts as a contaminant.

An electric fan swirls the amount of water in the bottle, while a filter thread gathers to contaminate particles. When clean, water is transferred through a tube into the second vase.

Measuring instruments now confirm that the water is clean, and the girls say they trust their system and drink it.

This filtration system is based on NASA technology, used to develop automatic filters in swimming pools.

All three girls said they planned to go to college and pursue careers related to science.

Skinner wants to be a pediatric surgeon, Sharrieff wants to be a biomedical engineer, and Snell hopes to become an anesthesiologist.

Attacked online

The next stage of the competition was a public vote, and the three girls used social media to promote their project. However, while the girls are attracting attention on social networks and Increasing the number of votes, users on 4chan - an anonymous internet forum, sought to destroy.

Anonymous commentators used racist words, arguing that the three girls' project is not worthy of being a finalist and that the African American community is voting for them just because by race, and calling on people not to vote for them.

In one of its remarks, NASA said that the vote was interfered with that they had to close this public voting system earlier than expected, and said they would announce the winner this month.

Sharrieff, Skinner and Snell did not talk about the controversies that are "stark" about voting but in a recent interview, they said very excitedly about the positive attention that their project received from friends, the Washington DC community and even strangers on social networks.

According to the Washington Post, in addition to public voting, judges will evaluate projects to determine the winner. The winning team will be invited to NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt to attend the two-day workshop and receive $ 4,000 to cover the cost.