Three Santa Clara teens were picked from a pool of thousands to represent their school at this year’s Thermo Fisher Scientific Junior Innovators Challenge. On Oct. 28, Santa Clara High School’s Akhil Nagori, Evann Sun and Lucas Shengwen Yen were among the 30 students who traveled to Washington, D.C. and were honored as finalists in the competition.
“It’s a great opportunity for us to not only compete with higher-level students, but also work with them,” said Sun. “It’s also a great opportunity for us to learn as students and see what different skills are out there, and what different skills that we can maybe develop further.”
“I think it’s a very great honor for all three of us to be going on this trip,” said Yen. “I really appreciate Evan and Akil for being great teammates and supporting each other along the way.”
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Nagori and Sun won top prizes in Washington. Nagori won the Broadcom Coding with Commitment Award for “combining STEM learning with coding to solve a community problem.” Sun won the Lemelson Foundation Award for Invention for “creating promising product-based solutions to real-world problems.”
Nagori also received the Thermo Fisher Scientific Leader award from his peers for demonstrating “collegiality and spirited leadership” and earning the “collective esteem of the class” and uniting “them around common goals.”
The trio earned the trip to D.C. because of work they did at Cabrillo Middle School. They created a pair of AI glasses that offered real-time text-to-audio transcription for visually impaired students.
Nagori got the idea during a trip to India. He saw his visually impaired uncle struggling to read hundreds of receipts and boxes at a cashier’s job. When Nagori brought the issue back to his group, they discovered that hundreds of thousands of children in the United States suffered from some form of visual blindness, and most of them couldn’t afford to attend private schools or costly aides.
The glasses detect text from a majority of books, signs and handwritten documents. They work in a variety of lighting situations and have high accuracy. They also provide quick audio feedback.
The true innovation, however, is the price point.
“When most other devices that accomplish similar things as ours cost in the $1,000 ranges, ours cost around $50 to make. I see that this could be really highly beneficial to so many people,” he continued.
Investors have also seen the potential. The group found that only 8% of students with visual impairments attend blind schools; the rest are at public schools that usually don’t have the resources to support them. So, they’re working with multiple groups to expand their reach.
“Currently, we’ve received a grant from the Army Educational Outreach Program, and we’re mass-producing the glasses to give out to students across California who could use this,” said Nagori. “In the future, we want to see this helping students all across the world, especially in areas with lower resources.”
They’re also planning improvements. Sun would like to add more custom-fitted parts. Yen says they’re also working on object detection for help with navigation around school and other areas.
All three students are part of the 49ers STEM Leadership Institute (SLI), a multi-year, year-round program that starts in sixth grade and runs through senior year for students at Cabrillo Middle School and Santa Clara High School.
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