MONTPELIER, Vt. (AP) -Chris Fitzhugh plans to spend spring break building a copper and PVC-pipe model to show how temperature differences in the ocean can be used to generate electricity.
It’s not just a personal quest.
The 17-year-old from Peacham and his teammates – two in Mexico, one at St. Johnsbury Academy – are competing in the Global Challenge, a Vermont-based contest aimed at improving American students’ math and science skills.
During the school year, 58 teams of American students coupled with students from China, India and Japan have been tackling technological solutions to global warming. They chat online, divide jobs based on skill, consult with advisers, and now, in the final grueling weeks, write a professional business plan.
“The most important goal is to engage U.S students in international collaboration using science and technology,” said David Gibson, executive director of the Global Challenge and a research assistant professor in computer sciences at the University of Vermont.
The idea for the contest came to management consultant Craig DeLuca of Stowe two years ago, as one of his clients planned to outsource design and manufacturing and his community considered putting off buying science text books.
“I’ve got to do something so that our kids have a shot in the global economy,” he said then.
He launched the contest in Vermont, and this fall it was awarded a $900,000 National Science Foundation Grant and expanded worldwide. Not only does it encourage interaction between students across the globe to solve problems, but it exposes them to opportunities in science, technology, engineering and math, Gibson said.
“We need projects like this across the nation, so we can scoop these kids up because schools don’t do it for them,” he said. With strong corporate support he could envision a million kids worldwide taking part.
Fitzhugh and a fellow St. Johnsbury Academy student started out with two partners from China but they dropped out early in the contest. That’s not uncommon.
“The work is pretty darn hard, and some teams can fall apart,” Gibson said.
So two students from Puerto Vallarta joined the team. Fitzhugh hopes they can stick together to win the competition, earning at least $2,500 each in scholarship money.
For now, he pecks away at the ocean thermal energy conversion project daily, in between school and homework.
Across the globe, Pan Yi of Shanghai just wrapped up the last pages of a business plan for intelligent electrical management. The system would route power through a building based on the temperature, time of day and cost, using artificial intelligence to enter the most important sections of the building first.
The system “responds to internal and external variables in building power management, allowing businesses to save money and power on a day-today basis,” he said.
Another team is working on a car that will run on electricity, hydrogen, bio-fuel and fossil fuels.
“We realized that being high school students, major technology breakthrough is basically impossible and infeasible, so we decided to use the principles of economics and geopolitics,” wrote Kun She of Shanghai, known as Kevin, in a computer message.
“In one sentence, our car is updateable,” he said.
Originality is a constant challenge.
Colin Santangelo, 17, of West Roxbury, Mass., was keen on a regenerative braking system for subway trains. “This would reduce their total electricity usage as it would return energy to the electrical grid when the trains braked,” he said.
When he checked online, he found a number of train manufacturers already using it.
Still, the Global Challenge has changed his thinking.
“I’ve been stopping to think about things I take for granted everyday … Can I make it more environmentally-sound?,” he said via e-mail.
Fitzhugh said the project has helped narrow his goals.
He wants to go into green energy, “helping the world break its fix of oil, helping the world breaks its fix of coal.”
But the best part is existing in a global environment.
“Knowing that at any time you wish, you can reach out and touch anyone in the world with a couple clicks of a mouse is absolutely breathtaking,” he said. “No longer are we bound by our county, state, or even national borders. We can work with the world and the world can work with us. Isn’t that cool?”
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