12-year-old girl became the best young scientist in the US

12-year-old Gitanjali Rao received the title of the best young US scientist in 2017 year.

Photo: TEDx Talks / Youtube

She achieved this status thanks to the invention of a fast and inexpensive way to determine the presence of lead in water, writes CNBC.

The girl has been involved in scientific activities since kindergarten, she has 8 inventions to her credit, but it was the water tester that gave her recognition - a 3D-printed device that allows you to determine the level of lead in water in 10 seconds.

At the heart of her device, called Tethys, is a carbon nanotube filter that detects the presence of lead. The device is also equipped Bluetooth-Transmitter, which allows you to see the test results on the smartphone screen.

With her invention, she wanted to help the city of Flint in Michigan, where in 2016, many residents suffered from contamination of urban water with lead.

“It started out looking for ways to remove lead from water, but then I realized that I was trying to go too far and I needed to first find a way to detect lead in water, not a way to eliminate it,” Rao said.

The idea of ​​the device came to the girl when she saw her parents checking the water with test strips, which can often be wrong, so the test has to be repeated several times to make sure that the water is really safe.

Having created the device, she submitted a video application for Discovery Education 3M Young Scientist Challenge and entered the top ten finalists. After several months of improving its theoretical concept and prototype, Rao arrived at 3M headquarters in Minnesota and delivered a five-minute speech before a panel of judges, in which she spoke about her invention.

As a result, she won. In addition to being the best young scientist, the girl also received a cash prize of $ 25 000 for this invention.

Gitanjali admitted that she is also interested in marketing, and intends to use her knowledge to market her invention. According to the young inventor, at the moment one such device costs $ 20, but if its wholesale production starts, the unit of goods will be cheaper.

The girl intends to invest the received money in her business for the production of devices for measuring the level of lead in water, as well as in her education.

In the future, she plans to become an epidemiologist or a geneticist.

Other children Gitanjali advises never give up.

“When I first started experimenting, I failed many times. But then I began to learn from my mistakes and realized that failure is just another step on the path to success,” Gitanjali emphasized.

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