Student Inventors: Girl Power

Students can be creative innovators and inventors to whom we owe some of our most impressive technological breakthroughs. Today we honor three teen inventors who have achieved great success by thinking outside of the box.

Ann Makosinski

Ann has invented a hollow flashlight that is powered by the heat of your hand. Ann is a grade 10 student from St. Michael’s University School in Victoria, Canada who beat out hundreds of other entrants to get her flashlight into the finals of the Google Science Fair. “I’m really interested in harvesting surplus energy, energy that surrounds but we never really use,” said Ann.

Ann is interested in utilizing alternate energy sources for everyday tasks. While researching alternative energy sources, Ann stumbled upon Peltier tiles which create energy when they are heated on one side and cooled on the other.

She ordered some tiles off the internet and found that body heat produced more than enough energy to light an LED, but not enough voltage. Ann tried several transformers to up the voltage; she even built her own. Finally after months of research and experimentation (along with her regular schooling and extra mural activities) she finally found a circuit that worked.

You can see more on Ann’s invention here

Elif Bilgin

Elif comes from Istanbul, Turkey and is the country’s first winner of the 2013 Science in Action award at the Google Science Fair for her bioplastic which she developed from banana peels. It was a long process for Elif who tried 10 different iterations of plastics before she found one that didn’t biodegrade too quickly and was strong enough for commercial use. “Even Thomas Edison said, ‘I have not failed. I have just found 10,000 ways that won’t work,’” Elif said about the long road of trial and error that eventually led to a successful prototype.

Elif hopes that her plant-based plastics will replace some of the petroleum-based plastics on the market and improve the environmental impact that plastics have.

Eesha Khare

Eesha is an American student who has invented a supercapacitor. This incredible device will replace conventional batteries in everyday electronics. Eesha’s electrochemical supercapacitor can be charged in 20 seconds, hold a charge for longer and lasts for more recharges than conventional batteries. Eesha’s invention can be recharged 10,000 times as opposed to the 1,000 charges a conventional battery is able to endure. Eesha hopes that her invention will help to reduce waste and improve the environment.

Student inventors remind us that a good idea and a lot of hard work mean that anyone can be successful at any age. Inspire your students to greatness for their next science fair projects.

See Eesha’s interview with Conan O’Brian here:

http://teamcoco.com/video/young-scientist-award-winner-eesha-khare-pt-1-06-13-13

Choosing the Right Tutoring Program will Ensure Success

It’s back to school now for millions of students and vicariously for their parents. And as they hit the books, virtually all have the same goal: raise grades and test scores substantially to get into a good college and have a chance in an increasingly competitive job market. But the bad news is that many students are falling short of their academic goals.

“Low or failing grades produce shame, frustration, helplessness, hopelessness and peer group rejection,” says Larrie Reynolds, Superintendent of Mount Olive Township Public Schools. “This allows the student to convince even themselves that their lacking success in school is actually a personal lifestyle choice, rather than an inevitable fate.”

The good news is that through an effective tutoring program, students can overcome the academic and resultant social difficulties.

There are many causes of poor academic performance, but it almost always leads to negative consequences for the confidence of the student. “They may be upset with parental pressure, have no strong drive, lack confidence, have learning problems or face other apparent barriers. So to simply start ‘tutoring’ them so often backfires, turning out to be an exercise in futility,” says Frank Milner, president of Tutor Doctor, a global network of academic coaching companies.

“That’s why our academic coaches begin with what our process refers to as a personal discovery. Our people find out what is in the student’s heart and mind before we begin to deal with English, mathematics or history. If we know that there is something working against the learning process, we can address it quickly and effectively,” says Milner.

As an example, we look at a sophomore in High School and a competitive swimmer who failed most of his classes during his freshman year. Family stress reached a boiling point and his parents reached out to a tutor for help. Sophomore year, the student went through the personal discovery process and was seen by an academic coach for both English and Math. The student proceeded to get A’s and B’s and his parents couldn’t be happier.

The personal discovery looks for five key issues that can be blocking the student’s academic success:

• Working parents have little time to help students with academics.
• Students that “struggle in silence.” These students are too embarrassed to reach out for help at school.
• Too many extra-mural activities impede the student’s ability to perform academically.
• Gaps in educational fundamentals.  These gaps need to be filled in while working on current studies.
• Situations where moving is involved. Moving from state to state, elementary to middle school, middle school to high school, public to private and vice-versa.

“We know that by conducting the personal discovery first and also by filling in gaps in the student’s knowledge before trying to go to the next level, “says James Zazeski of Tutor Doctor, ” our system proves that it is highly effective in accelerating the trajectory of learning.”

“Dakota has only been with her academic coach for two months and already her test scores in grammar, science and history have gone from D’s and F’s to high A’s,” says  Tracy Healey, a Tutor Doctor client. “Your careful selection in matching the right tutor to the student was spot on. Dakota’s confidence level is through the roof and she now feels that she is very capable of achieving great success as a student. As a parent, I’m thrilled!”

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