Three students from The Rhoades School in Encinitas named 2020 Top 300 Broadcom MASTERS

Three students from The Rhoades School in Encinitas – including current eighth grader Tejas Ravi and recent graduates Arjun Chatha and Bhadra Rupesh – were recently named “Top 300” competitors in the 2020 Broadcom MASTERS, the nation’s premier STEM competition for middle school students. This honor places The Rhoades School students among a select group of 300 middle school science and engineering projects in the U.S. from 3,476 entrants. The Rhoades School students’ projects included:

The Effects of Various Wavelengths on Rod Activity, by Tejas Ravi: Tejas’s project focused on rod bleaching many people experience when driving at night. Tejas measured the effects of exposure to various visible light wavelengths on the preservation of rod cell function. In his experiments, Tejas applied a summation formula to calculate and compare rod sensitivities. According to Tejas’s results, utilizing light of only blue-green wavelengths at night for road signage and vehicle lights would better preserve rod activity in our eyes than allowing exposure to the full spectrum (white light).

Fall Detection: Using Artificial Intelligence to Help the Elderly, by Arjun Chatha: Arjun explored a project that could help elderly individuals at risk of falling by employing artificial intelligence through the use of a camera coupled to a computer. After carrying out many trials, Arjun developed a human pose detection CNN (convolution neural network) that recognized and quantified key changes in body position as a novel means of fall detection for the elderly.

Evaluating Single Nucleotide Polymorphisms in the Correlation of Phenotypes to Type 2 Diabetes, by Bhadra Rupesh: Bhadra evaluated 15 single nucleotide polymorphisms in an attempt to assess possible correlations to phenotypes associated with Type 2 diabetes. To perform her analysis, Bhadra wrote a software program in Python and surveyed tremendous volumes of data sets she accessed through the online Type 2 diabetes Knowledge Portal. Bhadra discovered that several polymorphisms she examined had strong correlations to phenotype indicators of Type 2 diabetes.

The Broadcom MASTERS seeks to inspire young scientists, engineers and innovators to solve the grand challenges of the 21st century. For more information about Broadcom MASTERS, visit www.societyforscience.org.