A Bega Valley teenager and her friend from Wollongong have placed third at the world’s largest science research competition for school students.
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Jade Moxey, who graduated from Sapphire Coast Anglican College last year, and Illawarra Grammar School student Macinley Butson, were lauded for their portable and sustainable water purification system at the International Science and Engineering Fair in Pittsburgh overnight Friday (Australian time).
A very proud father, and college, shared the news at Saturday morning’s Country Fair.
As well as picking up third place in the the Environmental Engineering category, Jade and Macinley were presented with a prestigious scholarship by the King Abdul-Aziz and his Companions Foundation for Giftedness and Creativity worth $US20,000, and a further first prize of $1000 from the Qatar Foundation for Research and Development.
Jade and Macinley’s solar-powered water purification invention can be used to sterilise water in developing communities to a quality suitable for medical purposes not just drinking.
Being portable, it also has the potential to be used in emergency response and disaster relief situations.
The girls only teamed up last year when they met at the ISEF in Los Angeles – where Jade placed fourth in the Animal Sciences category – and joined forces for this year’s event in Pittsburgh, USA.
“It’s a world first use of solar power induction technology,” Ms Moxey said earlier this year at the national 2018 BHP Billiton Foundation Science and Engineering Awards, where their invention was nominated.
“It is able to produce clean drinking water and medical grade sterile water without electricity, which could have enormous benefits for emergency disaster zones. Water is such a critical problem and the extent of that problem is what inspired us both.”
Finishing her high school studies at SCAC last year, Jade is now studying applied science and forensics at the University of Canberra.
Meanwhile, in other great news for Australian students at the ISEF, Oliver Nicholls, 19, of Sydney took out first place in Robotics and Best in Category for designing and building a prototype of an autonomous robotic window cleaner for commercial buildings.
Caitlin Roberts placed third in Biomedical Science and Angelina Arora fourth in Environmental Engineering.