2021 Winners

Project Title: Speculor: A Comprehensive Teleophthalmology Platform for People Centered Eyecare

Summary: I developed Speculor, combining low-cost portable retinal imagers using smartphones with artificial intelligence to screen diseases. Speculor builds a low-cost teleophthalmology platform serving marginalized communities. A new transfer learning method was invented and tested for the classification of glaucoma achieving the best results reported in literature. Imagers have been tested in a clinic and pick up all clinically relevant features needed for accurate diagnosis for glaucoma.

Awards:

• • Best Project Award – Crystal (Intemediate)

  • Excellence Award – Gold (Intermediate)

  • Challenge Award – Disease and Illness (Intermediate)

  • Youth Can Innovate Award (Intermediate)

  • Best Project Award – Innovation (Intermediate)

  • Centre for Canadian Nuclear Sustainability Award

  • York University STEM Entrepreneur Bootcamp Scholarship Award (Intermediate)

Project Title: A Protist Against Fertilizer Runoff

Summary: The project studied the link between synthetic and organic fertilizer usage on algal growth. Runoff from organic and synthetic fertilizers as well as compost manure was added to algal samples in order to compare their growth rates and overall growth. Both synthetic and organic fertilizers produced similar results. Compost manure consistently showed less algal growth.

Awards:

• • Excellence Award – Silver (Intermediate)

Project Title: Prevention of Agrobacterium Tumor Invasion in Plants and VIR Gene Expression – Mathematical Models 

Summary: Plant diseases reduce agricultural yields. Crown gall disease, caused by Agrobacterium tumefaciens, triggers tumor formation that affects hundreds of plant species, including tomatoes and apples. During infection environmental signals activate bacterial-specific virulence genes that direct Agrobacterium to induce tumor formation. My project built five mathematical Hill function-based models to estimate parameters that influence virulence gene expression.

Awards:

• • Excellence Award – Silver (Senior)

Project Title: A Modular Multi-Functional Wound Dressing

Summary: Patients suffering from multiple illnesses and elderly patients are susceptible to developing non-healing wounds caused by infection. Traditional wound dressings cannot fight like infection. I developed a “smart” wound dressing capable of both treating infection and displaying infection in a colourimetric fashion. My wound dressing can adapt to a wide variety of wound types, promote quick recovery, and reduce cost and labour.

Awards:

• • Excellence Award – Gold (Junior)

  • Challenge Award – Disease and Illness (Junior)

     

  • S.M. Blair Family Foundation Award

Project Title: Meow!! Analysis of the Benefits of the Feline Laser Toy

Summary: I wanted to see if the cats would get more exercise from playing with the laser toy and whether it would cause them mental stress. I compared the laser toy to a feather wand toy. This was an important experiment because the majority of pet cats are overweight and don’t get enough exercise. The results of my experiment showed that the laser toy provided cats with a good way to get exercise in a way that was safe and that did not cause an increase in mental stress.

Awards:

• • Excellence Award – Gold (Junior)

  • Challenge Award – Curiosity and Ingenuity (Junior)

Project Title: A Graphene Oxide Paper Microfluidic Device for Heart Attacks

Summary: Certain cardiac indicators in blood increase during the progression of a heart attack. A test strip for early detection is developed using commonly available paper that works with a small quantity of simulated blood. The indicators are separated from the whole blood sample using a patent-pending graphene oxide filter membrane. The process takes less than two minutes with a final cost of around $1.

Awards:

• • Excellence Award – Gold (Senior)

  • Challenge Award – Disease and Illness (Senior)

  • Youth Can Innovate Award (Senior)

Project Title: Detecting Disaster – Preventing Devastation

Summary: If a tree falls in the forest, I WILL KNOW! One impact of climate change is forest fires which destroy nature, animals, and many homes. My device can decrease deforestation by monitoring and limiting the destruction of woodlands. Using AI and deep learning, my device will accurately detect extreme heat from fires in the forest, listen for unnatural noises including chainsaws, gunshots, machinery, and harmful unauthorized human activity.

Awards:

• • Excellence Award – Bronze (Intermediate)