Friday, March 19th, 2010

Outstanding High-School Science

Erika DeBenedictis (middle), took home top honors and $100,000 from the Intel Foundation; David Liu (right), took home second place; and Akhil Mathew (left), placed third. Photo courtesy Intel Science Talent Search.

Plotting optimal paths for interplanetary spacecraft? It's just plain old high school science.

We'll talk with one student who excelled in the Intel Science Talent Search, which concluded this week. Erika DeBenedictis, age 18, won top honors (and $100,000) for her work on an original optimizing search algorithm for spacecraft that discovers energy minimizing routes in specified regions of space. The work would allow a spacecraft to adjust its flight path en route to take advantage of the most energy-efficient route. We'll chat with her about her project.