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Speaker 1
Welcome.
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Speaker 2
To Aztec Caste, sponsored by the Arizona Technology Council with your hosts, Steve Zylstra and Eric Miller. Aztec Cast is dedicated to covering innovation and technology in Arizona and beyond. Aztec Cast invites leading experts to have real conversations about what is happening in the tech sector across the state of Arizona, from innovative startups to regional news companies and emerging technologies.
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Speaker 2
Aztec Cast covers the critical issues and economic trends propelling the state's growing tech ecosystem.
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Speaker 3
Welcome to the Arizona Technology Council's Aztec Cast. I'm Erik Miller, founder and co-owner of PDT, and today I'm joined by my co-host council president and CEO Steve Zylstra. Aztec Cast is dedicated to covering innovation and technology in Arizona and beyond, bringing together industry experts for real conversations about the trends, challenges and breakthroughs shaping our state's tech ecosystem. Today, we're joined by a group of outstanding future innovators who will share more about themselves shortly.
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Speaker 3
Ananya. LaCour. Raghu. Elias. Chang. Shereen. Aurora. Output RCA. Sorry, I see a poder. Akshay. Karthik. Ganesh. Tillery and Amberly Struthers. And we were just joined by Kevin Kilcher. So in this episode of Aztec Cast, we'll chat with some remarkable students, recently named winners and honorable mentions in the Council's 2025 Future Innovators of the year Award. These students will be honored at the council's upcoming Governor's Celebration of Innovation in November.
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Speaker 3
Today, these young Stem leaders will discuss their innovative projects, their passions, and their aspirations for the future. But before we dive in, Steve, can you tell our listeners a little bit about the Tech Council?
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Speaker 4
Yes. Thank you. Eric. It's a pleasure to be here. And what a great group of, guests we have today. I'm Steve Zylstra, I'm president and CEO. The Arizona Technology Council and its foundation called the site Tech Institute. Tech Council is a statewide organization with offices in Phoenix and Tucson. We're a member based trade association.
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Speaker 4
We have about 750 member companies across the state. We do public policy advocacy at the local, state and federal level. We do around 100 events a year. We have all kinds of publications. We have two podcasts, like the one we're on today, and we negotiate lower cost products and services for our members. So full service trade association for science and technology based companies.
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Speaker 4
Excellent.
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Speaker 3
Very good. Well, we have a lot of people on today. And the first thing you want to do is kind of learn a little about each of you. I think the best way to do that is, I'll just call your name and I'm going to go in reverse alphabetical order because you're probably used to going the other way.
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Speaker 3
So we'll go ahead and start with, Amber, you show up first on my list.
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Speaker 1
Hi. I'm, doctor Amber Struthers. I currently teach in the Tempe Union High School District. I am split between Corona del Sol High School and, Tempe High School. And my assignment this year is computer programing and our new program automation or robotics? Excellent.
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Speaker 3
Very good. And then Sia.
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Speaker 3
Up! We can't hear your ear. Like is up high. There we go.
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Speaker 5
This.
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Speaker 3
There we go. Perfect.
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Speaker 5
Perfect. Hi. My name is Steve. I have a 12th grader at Lake High School, and the research that I focused on was creating a material that changes color and response to mind based pollutants. It's very prevalent issue here in Arizona. But current detection equipment cost like thousands of dollars. And so my material costs just less than dollars and changes color in response to these pollutants.
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Speaker 3
Very cool. I can't wait to talk more about that. Shereen.
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Speaker 5
Hi everyone. My name is Shirin. I'm a sophomore at this channel and my research focuses on finding a natural, more accessible and cheaper alternative to Alzheimer's disease treatments by using a just safflower melanogaster model or fruit flies.
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Speaker 3
Very cool, very cool. And then, Kevin, are you a student? No, I don't think so. Can you tell us a little bit about yourself, Kevin?
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Speaker 4
You mean me, right?
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Speaker 3
Yes, please.
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Speaker 4
Oh, no. No, no, I am Kevin Kilcher. I'm the past president of of Caesar, the Arizona Council of Engineering and Scientific Associations. My role here is as the administrator of the, Future innovator and the teacher of the year awards. And, and I, I congratulate all of the, the, the, folks here that that have been, selected.
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Speaker 3
Excellent. Well, thanks for joining us today, Ganesh.
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Speaker 1
Hi. My name is Ganesh. I'm a fourth grader currently studying at Bass Fury High School. And my research focuses on modeling neurons in the brain. Specifically in the prefrontal cortex and in models, then through multiple, genetic factors.
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Speaker 4
Very cool, very cool.
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Speaker 3
Elias.
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Speaker 1
Hello. My name is Elias Chang. I am a current senior at basis Mason and my research focused on creating an AI training algorithm that learns human anatomy within CT scans with the hope of improving lung nodule segmentation and cancer detection overall.
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Speaker 4
Very cool, very cool.
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Speaker 3
And then Ananya.
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Speaker 5
Yeah. So hi. My name is an annual graduate and I'm a junior at Hamilton High School. My project essentially uses a machine learning model in order to diagnose depression and machine learning techniques to identify genetic biomarkers of depression based off of RNA sequencing data. I then use those biomarkers in order to create the chemical composition of a drug against depression.
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Speaker 5
On a molecular docking software plant.
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Speaker 3
And then, you're used to going first, but now you get to go last. Actually.
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Speaker 4
My name is Erica. I just want to mention for our audience that all of these students and our teacher here today have, won at the governor's celebration of innovation. This is, annual awards program put on by the Arizona Technology Council in collaboration with the Arizona Commerce Authority. So this is a very, very high honor.
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Speaker 4
And, so good to have them all here today. Yeah.
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Speaker 3
Yes, definitely. Cool. Actually.
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Speaker 4
My name is Oxford and I'm a fourth grader at Hamilton High School. And my project focused on creating a machine learning algorithm that helps create a new low cost alternative for remotely controlling robotic hands. Very cool. Very cool.
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Speaker 3
So as our listeners, as de pointed out, and our listeners have probably figured out as we were going around the room, is all these students have been doing, they're not just random students we picked up off the street. They are doing research and presented that research to, to to a group that, decided which ones would, we'd like to show off at the upcoming GCSE.
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Speaker 3
And so, Steve, do you want to do you want to take the first question?
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Speaker 4
Yes I do. So the work that you do is not easy. And, there are always challenges. So if each of you you could touch on, the biggest challenge you faced while developing your project and how you overcame. And, whoever wants to go first.
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Speaker 4
Otherwise, I'm going to.
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Speaker 1
Go ahead and. Yeah, I'll go ahead and talk about my piece, which oriented towards automation, robotics. One of the things that I kind of noticed is a gap in, need. There is definitely this high kind of community college level of, curriculum and material. And then there's a little bit in the high school and whatnot. So I noticed that there was this real gap between introductory pulling them into that depth.
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Speaker 1
And so that was one of the things I was focusing on was getting that depth.
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Speaker 4
All right. I'm going to call you out now. So so yeah.
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Speaker 5
That's a great question. And I think it's something that kind of like precludes students from going into research is just the funding. As a high school student, I think the greatest part about being a student is you have these massive, massive ideas and you haven't gotten to that point in your life where you start thinking of ideas as unrealistic.
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Speaker 5
So working within your means and working with the within a budget honestly makes your project more compelling. I found that the greatest way to tackle resource barriers when it comes to running a research project yourself is to look for community mentors. My high school chemistry teacher was the biggest, biggest mentor through this whole process. I did my whole experiment in the back of her classroom.
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Speaker 5
And we work together to find ways to, substitute materials that were not necessarily accessible. And so to any students who are going into research, I would say if you come up with that barrier of, oh, how do I get access to this? It's just about being creative and finding that workaround.
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Speaker 4
Very cool action. I think for the biggest challenge that I had, especially regarding my project, is just essentially trying to like build your kind of going off of a course that build your idea around like the resources you had and like, for example, for us, like the robotic hand that we use to test our idea was really low cost and like use the resources that we were only like, available to and like for our first idea, we wanted to like use a robotic hands like manipulate objects.
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Speaker 4
But like unfortunately, since the robotic hand was like really low cost and we had to like make use of what we had, like we couldn't really do that first project with it. So we had to, like, change our project around to what it is now. And rather than like use a robotic hand to control objects, we wanted to like create something that could control the robotic hand itself.
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Speaker 4
And it's really just like building your ideas around what you have. That comes to like the biggest challenge, especially, regarding my project and probably several other projects as well. Agility and adaptability. Right. Ananya.
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Speaker 5
Yeah. So another thing to add is that or for me, but specifically with my project, there was a huge learning curve that I had to overcome because all the content that I was, doing in my project was new to me at the beginning. Like I was looking into topics like PCA and, being able to find like specific transduction pathways.
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Speaker 5
And so being able to do that research and to learn those different topics, was something that I was able to or that was the greatest challenge in my perspective and I was able to overcome by, you know, consulting my teachers and asking them about questions that I had regarding biology or like, for example, I was also part of the ASU seed program, and so consulting with my professor in there and asking about the machine learning aspect of my project to get a better understanding of, my project and the overall, things that I was doing was really essential and helpful to overcome that barrier of the huge learning curve.
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Speaker 4
Very cool. Ganesh.
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Speaker 1
Yeah, I'll go with you on on the fact that there's a huge learning curve for me. Specifically, I did a computational biology project and along with that, there's obviously there's a lot of machine learning that goes along with that. And that took a lot of learning. Especially with the libraries and the languages. And another thing was actually just like finding the data sets, in the field of computational biology.
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Speaker 1
And that's where regard you can have an idea, but if you don't have the methods to execute that idea, it's pointless, right? Because for a lot of fields and a lot of ideas that people might have, you don't have the capability to actually execute and find all the materials for that project. So you have to be kind of resourceful, as others said.
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Speaker 1
And it was a big thing to finding a data set to match your project or just find a data set that was new and build your project off of that, which is a very interesting thing that I learned about my time doing research.
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Speaker 4
All right. Sherene, I know you were having issues with, did you hear the question? Hi.
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Speaker 5
So, yeah, that that I got in my camera. Start tracking. Could you fit the question?
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Speaker 4
Sure. So, obviously, research is, a difficult challenge. What what do you what are the biggest challenges you faced while developing your project, and how did you overcome it?
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Speaker 5
Yeah. So, for me, one of the biggest projects I had see us talk about, like, funding that definitely applied in my case, as well as the like, time commitment and effort, especially since I used over 2200 files. It was a lot to get all the funding to get those flies, as well as the time needed to, separate the slides based based on gender across the flies behavioral analysis.
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Speaker 5
In addition to my school work, are spending over six hours a day. Just being these flies. The biggest scientific challenge there for me was probably crossing flies. So because you can't really get flies with Alzheimer's disease. So I had to take flies that expressed state and genes and made them so that they would express a certain phenotype genotype and phenotype.
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Speaker 5
So that was one of the hardest things for me, especially, like figuring out the genetics of that and ensuring that they mated with the correct gene.
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Speaker 4
Excellent. Finally, Alliance.
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Speaker 1
Yeah. So, one thing I want to touch on is actually on a second. Ganesh. Because. Or Ganesh because my project also is on machine learning. Right. So finding a lot of high quality data and doing all the pre-processing is definitely a pain, even though it's a crucial step in the pipeline. And I guess the biggest thing for me is kind of building my neural network pipeline or the AI model pipeline because, utilizing for for my project, I utilize multiple GPUs, which are the, graphics processing units to speed up the training.
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Speaker 1
And so kind of getting all the optimization and the memory usage for my code. Correct. Was a huge trial. I had to go through a lot of trial and error, but I guess just building on and the resources already out there, because a lot of people have done projects related to AI. And so even if it's not the.
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Speaker 1
Same, I'm working on learning from their experience and maybe solutions they found definitely helped.
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Speaker 4
Excellent. And and Amber, what do you believe makes education so powerful in shaping students futures?
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Speaker 1
One of the things I definitely noticed is, Stem is one of those you can have an introductory level success story with a technician all the way up to high level PhD research, and it's one of those fields where I think people can really students can really see themselves in all facets of it. And that's one of the things that I kind of emphasizes that you can be truly successful when you absolutely every step of this, those Stem fields, we need individuals to fill those roles.
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Speaker 1
So I think it's one that, you know, students can find success. And I've seen stories of students, you know, starting as a technician and working their way all the way up to grad school. So I've and it's one of those and I think it really leads to those kind of opportunities.
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Speaker 4
All right. Back to your.
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Speaker 3
Yeah. So, I'd like to these are pretty. What I want to do is dig into each of your research projects so you don't have time for that. So, think about what is the most exciting thing you've learned through this experience. We talked about your challenges. But what was it kind of a surprise or exciting thing you learned?
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Speaker 3
And then what do you plan to do to build on that knowledge in the future? So, I'll just kind of randomly pick here. I'll go with Elia. Since you went last, last time.
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Speaker 1
Yeah. So I guess, honestly, there might be a few things. I don't know if I could point one, I know, something that we already touched on is kind of learning how to learn and research on your own, I think is pretty cool, like working under a mentor, but then also knowing that you're capable of going out and finding knowledge that you weren't you didn't know before.
00:16:45:04 - 00:17:06:13
Speaker 1
Like, for me, my AI experience was more on the minimal side. So I guess by learning how to learn, I was a super exciting experience for me. And then along that same line, knowing that, not just how to use AI, but understanding, mathematics behind it and, optimization that goes on behind the background for me was pretty exciting.
00:17:06:13 - 00:17:13:02
Speaker 1
And I guess in the future, I definitely plan on exploring more applications of AI as well in a future work.
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Speaker 4
Cool.
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Speaker 3
How about you, Shereen? What's your biggest, takeaway or surprise or exciting bit?
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Speaker 4
Yeah, like.
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Speaker 5
I said, coming up with a topic and doing the initial research is always really, really fun. I really enjoy, like, looking through all the articles. For me, the most exciting part was raising my feet size. I mean, you have 3002 guys at home. It's obviously going to be a lot of fun. They were like little pets. So I learned how to like all the different genetic stuff.
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Speaker 5
How to be a fruit flies. Virgin fruit flies. I did the microscopes and, like, alter their genes as well as conduct behavior assays. So all those skills can be used in the future with different animal models. And yeah, I think that was really, really cooking.
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Speaker 4
Pretty cool. Okay, cool.
00:18:05:11 - 00:18:09:05
Speaker 3
What about you can ash, what was your big takeaway?
00:18:09:06 - 00:18:37:15
Speaker 1
The most fun and exciting for, I'm sure, probably like, what we do with this is when your code compiles. Especially, like, after long training. Yeah. Long hours of training and data processing. Just like seeing your code crash. Certainly, like, demoralizing. But that one instead works is like. It's really thrilling. And that also provided insights to me as to how, like, gene expression, neuron structure, actually, actually and show neuron morphology.
00:18:38:01 - 00:18:48:15
Speaker 1
And that was actually really interesting because I hadn't seen any papers or anything about that before. Since it was a new data set. And so it was fun to make something novel that that hasn't been introduced into PubMed for.
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Speaker 4
Cool.
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Speaker 3
Yeah, I can tell you, it never gets old. I just went through that just, this morning I compiled something and it worked. And I was like, yeah, a little adrenaline rush. It's positive thing. Yeah. So what about yourself?
00:19:01:10 - 00:19:02:06
Speaker 4
00:19:02:07 - 00:19:28:07
Speaker 5
Well, I, I love research. I think it's, like, embedded in my bones, but I think the most exciting part is the social aspect of it. Like going to conferences, going to fairs, going to meet all of the other participants and just talking about your project, and sharing it. I think, one of the competitions I compete at, one of my judges ended up having, surgeon syndrome, which is the disease that is triggered by the pollutants.
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Speaker 5
My material detects. And so we had to have, like, a big conversation about, the real world impact of my project. And I think, like, sometimes with science, you can get so lost in all the different processes and all of your data that you forget what you're trying to address and why you got interested in the first place.
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Speaker 5
So I just think having opportunities like this where I get to freely just talk about my project is always my favorite part.
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Speaker 3
That's great. That's good. And that's a very positive aspect because, the social can be a lot of fun and it'll serve you through the rest of your life. That's one of my favorite parts, too. Ananya. Okay.
00:20:06:11 - 00:20:27:08
Speaker 5
Yeah. So something specific to more specific to my project that I thought was, like, really interesting was the ability to do molecular docking, because in my previous projects, I used, and trained AI models, but this time I was able to add a different component with molecular docking and to being able to test out different, molecules and then test out their binding affinities.
00:20:27:09 - 00:20:47:11
Speaker 5
I thought just that aspect of learning something completely new and going into that different field was very, very interesting. And exciting for me because I was able to make some discoveries, on like this automated software, which, is kind of interesting and kind of where I want to go in my future, where I'm looking at how can we use technology to enhance the field of biology?
00:20:47:13 - 00:20:48:06
Speaker 4
Okay, cool.
00:20:48:06 - 00:20:52:08
Speaker 3
Okay, cool. And actually, I think your your last here on this list.
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Speaker 4
Yeah. So I think like in regards to my project, the most like exciting thing I did was I really learned like how to 3D print. I didn't know how to 3D print before and like, I really focus more on machine learning, but, like, getting to know how to, like, 3D print and how to operate a 3D printer was probably the most exciting part.
00:21:14:11 - 00:21:33:14
Speaker 4
And then, other than that, like, also like, I worked in a lab, so, like, working with my, teammates in my lab, as well as, like, getting to know my professor and, like, everyone that worked in the lab was also really exciting for me because it was like a new experience. I hadn't worked in the lab before.
00:21:33:15 - 00:21:48:12
Speaker 4
Good, good. So. So, this time I'm going to start with Amber and with with Kevin. Amber, can you share a moment or a project from your classroom that really captures why you love teaching?
00:21:48:13 - 00:22:09:03
Speaker 1
That would be. That's definitely a challenging one for me. Answer, because I can definitely think of many projects. But one of the things that really, I, recently enjoyed is, doing animatronics. So we are currently using microcontrollers, Arduinos, to be able to make little skeleton animatronics for the Halloween season. And it's a brand new project for me.
00:22:09:03 - 00:22:28:01
Speaker 1
I've never, I've played with Arduinos before, but never in this context. And the students are absolutely having a blast. And I'm seeing students that had previously not been as comfortable with coding, really finding like a connection because they want to get that project done and that cool little thing finished up. So that's one that's been, I definitely am enjoying.
00:22:28:02 - 00:23:01:06
Speaker 4
Very, very cool. So my next question is, for each of the students is how do you think your project could make a real world impact in the future? Actually, let's start with you. Yeah. So a lot of previous methods, like like I said before, my projects focused on controlling robotic hands remotely and essentially like you want to, like, take your hand and be able to, like, have, like, cameras or like devices in your hand and be able to control, another robotic hand remotely.
00:23:01:07 - 00:23:24:07
Speaker 4
And I would say, like there's really two big real world impacts. The first one is like a lot of previous approaches cost like thousands of dollars. Like for example, you have like, VR as well as like they use these in like movie studios, like motion tracking systems where you like, put trackers on your bodies and like, it would be able to, like, track the motion.
00:23:24:08 - 00:23:50:04
Speaker 4
Those are like really industrial and, like, costs anywhere from like 5000 to $10,000. So that's like one one of the main impacts was like creating a more low cost solution that is able to like, adjust like the price gap. And then the second one builds off of that, like, it's like being able to democratize the accessibility of these low cost solutions to like, other individuals.
00:23:50:04 - 00:24:11:14
Speaker 4
So like for example, like, open source, the code and then so it's like accessible to everyone and then like individuals and like research institutions that may also not have as much funding they are able to build off of, like our idea, since it's already low cost and they can expand upon it rather than having like to step into the field itself.
00:24:11:14 - 00:24:18:04
Speaker 4
Like a big price jump that they have to make. Very cool. Ananya.
00:24:18:05 - 00:24:52:00
Speaker 5
Yeah, so I think this is actually a really, important question because for my project specifically, I'm focusing on depression and in the field of like mental health, the idea of using like one's biological profile to, diagnose and treat depression is kind of a new topic in the field of, depression, mental health. And so I think that my project is not only am I able to create an objective way to first diagnose depression and then also treat depression, but it's, raising awareness about how our biology is also an important factor to these mental health disorders.
00:24:52:00 - 00:25:09:04
Speaker 5
And that's the kind of, research that I'm trying to make in the world or like in our scientific community, to show that there is a different side to these mental health disorders. And it brings about that awareness by showing that there is research that proves that there is some biology behind depression.
00:25:09:05 - 00:25:15:03
Speaker 4
That's so important. And almost all of us have depression. So.
00:25:15:04 - 00:25:16:12
Speaker 1
So I think.
00:25:16:13 - 00:25:43:10
Speaker 5
Sorry if I cut you off. But I think for my project specifically, for a little bit context, there are pollutants in the air called, silica and uranium that are really common from mines and rural and indigenous communities in Arizona. Breathe in some of the highest rates in the country of these pollutants. And as a result, they suffer from, a disease called Sorrento syndrome.
00:25:43:11 - 00:26:04:15
Speaker 5
And this disease takes six years on average. Diagnose. Not because we we don't have a, treatment plan, but simply because it is so expensive and such a tedious task. And so to, actually explain about making a material that is so cheap and and so accessible, it kind of brings science to the people and it reminds you, like, who you're serving.
00:26:05:00 - 00:26:24:10
Speaker 5
I think that this is the like it impacts a lot of people because it impacts communities that are often forgotten in the field of health care. And I think it brings attention to, like, scientific developments and advancements should be about equity, right? Like a solution is only as good of a solution if it can serve everybody.
00:26:24:12 - 00:26:34:12
Speaker 5
And so I think, this research is important, simply because it does provide that extra perspective or like that level of nuance to health care.
00:26:34:13 - 00:26:40:11
Speaker 4
Excellent. All right. Good. Yeah.
00:26:40:12 - 00:27:12:09
Speaker 1
Just to contextualize a little bit on my project, a few months ago or something, researchers actually, like, completely covered the fly brain and reconstructed neuron for neuron. So that's kind of how I based my project off of. And the starting point for this was actually to license it out to research labs. And as a result, these researchers could use it, and try and figure out like functions and stuff like, which neurons have which genes and like which proteins are associated with each of them.
00:27:12:10 - 00:27:39:07
Speaker 1
And that could help with like diagnosing pathologies. And it could also help with like a lot of clinical data. So like, I think by predicting spatial and temporal generation in the area of the brain I'm working on, it could guide early diagnosis or precise treatments for conditions like Alzheimer's or neurodegenerative diseases. Because it's essentially just having a, a brain scan for each individual patient.
00:27:39:09 - 00:27:49:10
Speaker 1
And since it's open source research labs, anyone can use it, to figure out, like, what their brain map looks like. And since,
00:27:49:11 - 00:27:52:03
Speaker 4
Thank you, Elias.
00:27:52:05 - 00:28:16:05
Speaker 1
Yeah. So, because my, my project focus on improving, the algorithm specifically, what I did is I focused on learning anatomy because the idea, the intuition behind it is that if models are able to look at, like, CT scans and break them down by structure, just like human doctors.
00:28:16:07 - 00:28:46:09
Speaker 1
Do, that will be able to improve the recognition of abnormalities down the line. So because my project showed that my model can have greater accuracy and requires less data, the hope is that this can be implemented either into hospital systems or radiologists workflows to improve early diagnosis. And that's pretty critical because in cases such as lung cancer, two thirds of people diagnosed with lung cancer are already in their advanced stages and this around 66% of these patients are.
00:28:46:12 - 00:29:03:09
Speaker 1
And by that point, there's no really feasible treatment. So the best way to tackle this is really to pick up on those signs earlier and give treatment then. So the goal really is to improve patient outcomes and, streamline workflows.
00:29:03:11 - 00:29:05:13
Speaker 4
Thank you. And Sharon.
00:29:05:15 - 00:29:45:09
Speaker 5
So Alzheimer's disease, which my project address is currently the seventh leading cause of death worldwide. And it's projected to impact over 14 million people by 2060 and create treatment. I collect ICO industries, inhibitors and monoclonal antibodies and while these are available, they're really expensive, costing over $30,000 a year. And they're not usually accessible from, rural communities. So from a social aspect, my project investigated a natural plant based extract called ashwagandha, which is really easy to find in grocery stores, very cheap.
00:29:45:11 - 00:30:17:12
Speaker 5
And it showed that it like reduced the Alzheimer's disease pathology and displayed, which can be shown in humans as well. From the more scientific aspect, my project was novel in a couple different ways. So it, used a different type of assay. So use the climbing and flight assays to assess cognitive and motor function in the fruit flies, as well as assess the chronic and long term effects of supplementation of ashwagandha on this Alzheimer's disease pathology and the performance of the fruit flies.
00:30:17:13 - 00:30:30:10
Speaker 5
So it my project it provides this real world impact of a more natural, safer and more accessible treatment for Alzheimer's disease that could be applied to other neurodegenerative diseases as well.
00:30:30:12 - 00:31:11:02
Speaker 4
How fabulous is that? That's called great. Great. So so current. CSA has been supporting the Tech Council for many, many years and helping us, select the future innovators, and the teacher of the year. And we thank you for that. Was there anything about, this particular cohort that you found? Unusual? Outstanding? I know it's hard to compare, but, or anything about the process that was different this year that, you use in your, in your unmute.
00:31:11:04 - 00:31:15:15
Speaker 4
Thank you. The process that this year.
00:31:16:02 - 00:31:17:06
Speaker 1
00:31:17:07 - 00:32:04:07
Speaker 4
Followed the process in most of the previous year. We are very fortunate in Arizona to have a very strong, scientific, community, I guess, of, of events that that highlight students and, and, we, we actually, rely very heavily on, that the only, truly unusual thing that this year was that almost all of the, the, the, students submitted their entries later than in any other year.
00:32:04:08 - 00:32:33:09
Speaker 4
And this year, we, apparently had quite a few procrastinators, but, we, eventually got got there and, I, I forgot, I believe we had, 22. I think that this year of, of, all of them top notch students and it was very difficult to actually, find the top of the top, excellent area.
00:32:33:11 - 00:32:34:04
Speaker 4
Back to you.
00:32:34:08 - 00:32:49:15
Speaker 3
Yeah. So we talked a little bit about what you think your technology could do in the future, but let's talk about what you're going to do in the future. So we really like to hear and when we've done this before, this has been one of the things that people like to hear the most is, you know what? What's next for you?
00:32:50:01 - 00:32:55:12
Speaker 3
School work, what do you have planned? So I'll start with Srini.
00:32:55:13 - 00:33:20:05
Speaker 5
Yeah. So I've always been really interested in like, the medicine healthcare space as well as like, accessibility and equity, making sure that everyone gets the same resources. So right now, I'm a sophomore in high school. I have a little bit of time to continue pursuing my scientific research endeavors, as well as other endeavors in scientific competitions and more.
00:33:20:06 - 00:33:30:02
Speaker 5
In the future, I'd like to pursue medicine, especially, making a meaningful impact on my community, defining some accessible treatment.
00:33:30:03 - 00:33:30:12
Speaker 4
Oh, cool.
00:33:30:13 - 00:33:34:01
Speaker 3
Very good. Elias.
00:33:34:03 - 00:33:53:10
Speaker 1
So, as a senior, right? I'm going to be heading off to college next year. So, and we have a few other seniors here as well. So for me, I'm hoping to major in maybe electrical engineering or computer science, whichever one I haven't really decided yet. It's dependent. But when I'm there, I'm hoping to continue my research.
00:33:53:12 - 00:34:18:02
Speaker 1
And I development and computer intelligence kind of in general. So I'm not laser focused on the medical applications, but also exploring the other ways that, having autonomous computer programs are able to benefit society. And so along with hopefully getting a research position at a lab, whichever university I go to, I'm also hoping to explore, embodied intelligence as well.
00:34:18:02 - 00:34:41:10
Speaker 1
So, like, actually, this project on robotics is some thing I hope to explore as well in the future. And ultimately my goal is to target these the devices I developed, towards people's benefit. So that could be in healthcare. Having, assistive robotics and exoskeletons are something I'm passionate about pursuing in the future. And I'm also curious about venturing into the business space as well.
00:34:41:10 - 00:34:52:05
Speaker 1
That way we can get, actual product over to users and really impact their lives. So that's kind of a rough outline, but it might change, you know, I'm open to different possibilities.
00:34:52:08 - 00:34:53:08
Speaker 4
Okay, good.
00:34:53:09 - 00:35:01:05
Speaker 3
So when right now you guys are applying to college, right. You haven't heard back yet, right? Okay. Yeah. Well good luck to everybody. Ganesh.
00:35:01:06 - 00:35:31:00
Speaker 1
Yeah. Like Elias, I'm also a senior in high school and also in college. I'm planning to major in biomedical engineering, and I hope to do this primary, which is two inches. I haven't really decided if I want to go into medicine or if I want to go in tech. And so, kind of leaves me, a choice into which ones I'm going to, in the future, I hope to do something either in the clinical space or research space, whether it be product development or just, be a doctor in general.
00:35:31:01 - 00:35:35:06
Speaker 4
Cool. Or both. Yeah. Yeah, maybe. See? Yeah, yeah.
00:35:35:06 - 00:36:02:04
Speaker 5
So I'm also a senior in high school, and with college decisions coming up, that's a very big thing on my mind. But, the thing, in chemistry and material science, with the big, the big emphasis on sustainability, making sustainable solutions that are like, tangible and accessible and making those like putting those out on the market is really what my, my next big focus is.
00:36:02:05 - 00:36:23:00
Speaker 5
And then as per college, I'm very excited to see research and lab space. I've mostly done research in my chemistry classroom, which is just a very different experience, but I'm also excited again, to meet some insanely accomplished and passionate individuals and college and take on those endeavors. But yeah, right now it's chemistry.
00:36:23:01 - 00:36:25:03
Speaker 4
Yeah. Cool. Excellent.
00:36:25:05 - 00:36:27:00
Speaker 3
And, yeah.
00:36:27:01 - 00:36:48:08
Speaker 5
Yeah. So I'm actually a junior in high school, so I've got a little bit of time left until college. Yeah. But so basically, I'm kind of in the same boat as Shereen, like, right now. I just want to continue doing my own scientific research at home or like, in the lab, and then continue competing in different sides competitions and presenting my work and being able to really make that big impact on the community.
00:36:48:08 - 00:36:50:01
Speaker 5
With the research that I'm doing.
00:36:50:03 - 00:36:51:14
Speaker 4
Cool. Very cool.
00:36:51:15 - 00:36:54:07
Speaker 3
And actually you get the final word on this one.
00:36:54:08 - 00:37:33:12
Speaker 4
So I'm a senior in high school, so like, yeah, college decisions come out soon. So like I'll be heading to college and, I plan on doing biomedical engineering, but I want to focus more on, like, the computer side of it. So, I do like a combination of biomedical engineering and computer engineering, and then, I want to, like, I really want to focus on the research side of things, but, like, instead of academia, I would want to go, like, take my research into, like, the market and like the products that develop and, like, put them out on the market.
00:37:33:12 - 00:37:41:06
Speaker 4
So more of like a startup, kind of thing rather than pursuing it through academia.
00:37:41:07 - 00:37:57:14
Speaker 3
Exciting, exciting. It's, yeah, so much so there's a lot of potential out there and new technology coming as well to help you get it done. So, you'll be on the leading edge of, applying AI. So be very exciting time. Very exciting time. So go ahead, Steve.
00:37:57:15 - 00:38:11:02
Speaker 4
If I may. Yeah. Amber, how do you help students see the connection between what they're learning and the real world technology and innovations that are happening right here in Arizona?
00:38:11:04 - 00:38:27:08
Speaker 1
So one thing I definitely do is make sure that I am aware and connected. So I, make it a point to kind of pursue opportunities and whatnot. I recently was able to attend the semiconductor conference and being able to kind of see where things were going, because this is it's new to me. It's not my background.
00:38:27:08 - 00:38:43:00
Speaker 1
And so, I definitely like to stay up on things. I listen to Science Friday every week and whatnot, and so try to bring that kind of, little bits and pieces as we go to kind of see where we're going and things that I. Wow. And that's one thing I definitely notice is when something is wow to me, and I really want to share it.
00:38:43:01 - 00:38:48:10
Speaker 1
Often the students are like, wow, that's really interesting. So that's one of the ways that I approach it.
00:38:48:12 - 00:39:09:04
Speaker 4
So for the students, can you tell us how, your teachers or mentors, supported you through, this process, and helped you achieve your goals? And let's start with, Sia.
00:39:09:05 - 00:39:10:02
Speaker 1
So,
00:39:10:03 - 00:39:29:10
Speaker 5
Shout out Miss Larson, my chemistry teacher. My. If you come teacher. I've talked about her a bit, but I think just like she has so much passion for chemistry, and she kind of gave me my passion for chemistry, which I just saw her, like a day or so ago. And, the Nobel for chemistry came out, and it was for metal organic frameworks.
00:39:29:11 - 00:39:50:11
Speaker 5
And the basis of my project last year was MOFs was metal organic frameworks. And so we were it was like the homecoming carnival. And we're just sitting there in the street talking about like the molecular structure of this compound and the MOF, that one. And it was very much nerd fest. But like having that person just share your passion.
00:39:50:12 - 00:40:13:08
Speaker 5
And the other thing is, like teachers, of course, have so much expertise in your topic, but they're an adult. Like having someone with that level of authority to have that faith in you, can help garner some of that faith in their student themselves. And I think they're also just a great sounding board. They've seen plenty of projects blow up in their classroom, so they know.
00:40:13:09 - 00:40:23:00
Speaker 5
And we want to avoid whatnot, too. But yeah, it's just having that constant rock. And that support system will help you keep going on those those hard nights.
00:40:23:02 - 00:40:29:10
Speaker 4
And so important. Sure. Yeah. Ushering.
00:40:29:11 - 00:40:55:14
Speaker 5
So there's a pretty my teacher is like, without that I would not be here for sure. And like CSA they act as such a nice support system where they're constantly there for you, whether it's like, oh, I'm freaking out. Easy stuff is coming soon to like, can you give me ideas on how to format this one slide? It's they're always there and they're always ready to give their advice for me, particularly my bio and chem teachers.
00:40:55:14 - 00:41:22:09
Speaker 5
They were instrumental to me obtaining their fruit flies and helping me with the whole ordering process, because that was a really complicated process as a as a professor at a local university, he learned me a lot of equipment and my best stocks to practice. So just having those people who are always reading for you and pretty for you, it's truly like it's very supportive and it's why I'm here today.
00:41:22:10 - 00:41:26:05
Speaker 4
Excellent. Thank you. Elias.
00:41:26:06 - 00:41:58:12
Speaker 1
So, my mentor is Doctor Jaime Lang at ASU, who I'm working under with the same program. And besides, granting access for supercomputer at ASU, which is absolutely pivotal for my project. I guess the advice that and the resources he gave me were just, foundational in order to get to where I am today. Like, coming in with very minimal AI knowledge, she gave me a lot of resources and articles to read, to learn and go through on my own pace to pick up my knowledge for my project.
00:41:58:12 - 00:42:20:00
Speaker 1
And, whenever, when I came up with my idea, I emailed him for advice and she'd give me some tips on what to include or things that I could do to, make my study stronger. And I guess he always ensured I did quality work and able to. But beyond beyond what I thought was possible and really challenged me.
00:42:20:00 - 00:42:24:08
Speaker 1
And so I'm very grateful for his support and mentorship.
00:42:24:09 - 00:42:27:07
Speaker 4
That's very cool to even ask you, professor, as your well man.
00:42:27:08 - 00:42:31:00
Speaker 3
And I was wondering how you got access to all those GPUs now.
00:42:31:02 - 00:42:31:15
Speaker 4
Yeah, yeah.
00:42:32:01 - 00:42:38:12
Speaker 1
I definitely if I tried to run them on my own computer, I would have absolutely fried it up. Yeah, yeah.
00:42:38:13 - 00:42:41:15
Speaker 4
All right. Ganesh.
00:42:42:00 - 00:43:13:01
Speaker 1
Snow I had I didn't have a specific mentor under my project, but I'd like to shout out doctor Lee from Midwest University. And he helped a lot with the research project I was pursuing with him. And also the air and space and the translator over to my project in the sense that it was a lot of the same and similar machine learning techniques and processes, and that really helped me like figure out how to do each part of the project, even because I was spearheading this project that I submitted for Easy Stuff alone.
00:43:13:02 - 00:43:30:13
Speaker 1
The other one, though, that I did with Artemis, he was kind of the Pi, so I got to learn a lot from him working under him. I'm incredibly grateful for that. Very thankful as well. And yeah, so I learned a lot from him about, like, machine learning techniques. And I couldn't get any GPU access to the Russian university because it wasn't really affiliated.
00:43:30:13 - 00:43:38:06
Speaker 1
But yeah, I could run it on Google Cloud CPUs and GPUs, which was also really helpful.
00:43:38:07 - 00:44:11:05
Speaker 4
Yeah, very good actually. Yeah. So my mentor is, professor J things sun. ASU so like, I would like to show him out since he helped us provide, he provide us so a lot of resources. And then another person I worked with a lot, was a graduate student in the same lab, named Rohan. He helped he was the main one that, like, guided us through, like, everything that we did coming down to, like, building our robotic and and the machine learning.
00:44:11:06 - 00:44:37:03
Speaker 4
And then I would also like to shout out my teammate Alex Wong and like he, he's like, more experienced with, like, more of building the robotic hand itself. And then I focus a lot on the machine learning. So like, having like a teammate as well, helped a lot in the process. And then finally, I would like to show my parents because they had a lot of emotional support.
00:44:37:03 - 00:45:03:05
Speaker 4
They helped me a lot through the process, especially when I was like, getting really busy. Like they pushed me through it and that helped a lot as well. Yeah, I think, this process of working with others, working in teams is a really important experience for the way the real world operates. Right. So, I'm glad to see all of you, sharing your experience with others.
00:45:03:07 - 00:45:05:05
Speaker 4
And the only.
00:45:05:06 - 00:45:05:14
Speaker 5
00:45:05:14 - 00:45:07:00
Speaker 4
Yeah. No, no.
00:45:07:02 - 00:45:40:12
Speaker 5
Yeah. Ananya. Yeah. Yeah. So one that helped me a lot with my project was one of my teachers at Hamilton High School. Her name is this is Nipah. She, no longer teaches at Hamilton Vaccines with CDC, but she was, like, really instrumental into encouraging me. And then, like, helping me, like, apply for, like, easy stuff and, like, looking over my slides, giving me some directions when maybe I should present my project and being there to, like, hear about my project, hear me rant about it, and then, you know, actually like, be interested in it and then give me feedback on it.
00:45:40:12 - 00:46:08:07
Speaker 5
And so she was kind of really foundational to me then like starting like the research journey in like doing or like being, having the courage to do my research. And so, my sniper's like one of, like, the greatest teachers that, has really helped me with this research project. And also just like, actually, my parents were also really instrumental to the emotional and moral support because without them, I've had so many days where I'm just like, my code is not working.
00:46:08:08 - 00:46:17:15
Speaker 5
My projects like I don't know what to do. And they're like, it's okay, just try again. And I, you know, keep going and then it ends up working. So also shout out to my parents.
00:46:18:00 - 00:46:23:08
Speaker 4
Very cool. I'd also like to shout out Miss Nipah as well. Yeah.
00:46:23:09 - 00:46:28:10
Speaker 3
Yeah. I was Sri. And what did your parents think about all the fruit? Fruit flies? Was that.
00:46:28:12 - 00:46:30:08
Speaker 4
00:46:30:10 - 00:46:55:05
Speaker 5
They were not pleased for sure, because, fruit flies kind of stink. Yeah. So I had taken over my mom's office because. Yeah, wanted to be within, like, a ten foot radius of that. So she was not happy about having his space taken. But it's okay. We got some pets out of it, I think. I think we were quite pleased.
00:46:55:06 - 00:47:09:02
Speaker 5
Yeah, I remember seeing the pictures of all the flies. Yeah. Was really funny. Yeah, that's really cool. The bookshelf said. That's what I was talking about. Oh.
00:47:09:03 - 00:47:19:07
Speaker 4
I remember very cool about a project that involved bats, and, the student kept the bats in the attic for.
00:47:19:09 - 00:47:26:02
Speaker 5
I have broken some. I don't know how their paperwork got approved, because there's no way.
00:47:26:03 - 00:47:27:12
Speaker 4
Yeah, that's pretty cool.
00:47:27:13 - 00:47:53:11
Speaker 3
It's pretty cool. Well, so you guys are now are you? Will be after the ceremony considered award winning, high school researchers. And there's other people that want to do that, right. There's other kids that are probably looking at you and looking up to you to see how to do that. So what advice would you give other students who are interested in not just pursuing a Stem career, but specifically they want to do a Stem project in high school?
00:47:53:11 - 00:48:00:09
Speaker 3
What's what's the what's what's the advice you can give them? And I'm going to actually start the middle this time. Was Sia.
00:48:00:11 - 00:48:02:01
Speaker 1
00:48:02:02 - 00:48:24:00
Speaker 5
I think this may sound counterintuitive, but it's not. Think about the award at all. Any award that my project has garnered has been purely like a surprise. Honestly, it's much harder to run a project if you're not truly passionate about it. And I think the biggest part about high school research is that it's supposed to be fun.
00:48:24:00 - 00:48:56:03
Speaker 5
Like, this is you're you're given this opportunity to do this. And of course, there's like stressful nights and your data is not going to come out great, like majority of the time. But overall it should be a fun, enjoyable process. You should enjoy what you're reading. What you're experimenting on should make you happy or curious or inquisitive. And if you ever find yourself feeling like you're forcing yourself to do a project for some like external reason, then you might want to rethink, why you're doing the project or the project that you're doing.
00:48:56:04 - 00:49:16:13
Speaker 5
And then I also think the biggest advice is like, definitely rely on your support systems. And that includes, like your own gut and your own intuition. The way to like, win a science fair is to connect on a human level and be very real. That what you accomplished as a high schooler. Because to do any research in high school is such a big deal.
00:49:16:15 - 00:49:32:14
Speaker 5
And so sell yourself is who you are. You are a high school student. You don't have to act like a PhD professor just because you don't have a Nobel to your name doesn't mean your research is invalid. So I think just have a lot of like trust and confidence in yourself and enjoy the process.
00:49:32:15 - 00:49:37:07
Speaker 3
So that's great advice. Elias, what about you? What's your advice?
00:49:37:08 - 00:49:40:06
Speaker 1
Yeah. So I guess yeah, I already covered a lot of stuff.
00:49:40:06 - 00:49:41:10
Speaker 3
Yeah. That was that was good.
00:49:41:11 - 00:49:42:12
Speaker 4
Sorry about that. I have to.
00:49:42:12 - 00:49:43:11
Speaker 3
Write that one down and put it.
00:49:43:11 - 00:50:00:07
Speaker 1
On a part of. No you can't. Yeah. So I guess to add on some things, some other things as well. I think, the first thing is to be ambitious, you know, as a high school student, I think sometimes we get trapped in our own box of thinking we're not able to do certain things or we're not capable enough to get there.
00:50:00:07 - 00:50:28:10
Speaker 1
And while some things that may not be feasible within the time we have, I think having that dream and just being willing to take the steps to get there will lead to a lot of great things, and especially for personal development and just skill development. And I think you'll end up surprising yourself with what you can do. And then the second thing is to embrace uncertainty, because I feel like a lot of research, I've heard it compared to like being walking through a blind maze and you don't know where you'll end up.
00:50:28:10 - 00:50:48:06
Speaker 1
But I think that's kind of that's part of the fun of the process. And every time you have a failure, the way I see it is to reframe it as a redirection. So I think that's something students I would give advice for students is to not be afraid of that, the, the possible failures and just being willing to take it head on.
00:50:48:07 - 00:50:49:14
Speaker 4
Cool, cool.
00:50:50:00 - 00:50:52:06
Speaker 3
Actually, what about yourself? What's your advice?
00:50:52:07 - 00:51:12:09
Speaker 4
I think for like, my biggest advice is like, at least covered it right at the end. Like, don't be afraid of failure. Like, don't like not email a professor because, like, you're going to think they're not going to respond to or like, don't like try to not pursue this opportunity because like, you have something in your head like it's going to go wrong.
00:51:12:12 - 00:51:35:06
Speaker 4
It's like just like you you don't really especially in the high school level, like with research, you don't really have anything to lose. So you should just keep experimenting and never be afraid of failure. And like, if anything happens, like it's just it's always going to you're going to learn from it and you can keep on going. So like, don't like, try to predict the future if that makes sense.
00:51:35:06 - 00:52:03:13
Speaker 4
Like that or something like that. Don't like be negative about it instead. Like take it as every step, as an opportunity. Keep progressing. And especially with the research, like you're going to have failures, you're going to have like step backs, you're going to have roadblocks, and you're just going to have to keep progressing. And like if you're afraid of failure, then like it's really hard to continue to progress and learn from what you've done in the past and the mistakes you've made in the past because like, it's inevitable to make mistakes.
00:52:03:13 - 00:52:13:07
Speaker 4
So like just keep going and like, don't really care about, like, the negatives of it and like always look forward.
00:52:13:08 - 00:52:17:01
Speaker 3
Really good advice. Shari what would you add to that.
00:52:17:03 - 00:52:37:14
Speaker 5
Yeah. So of course Elyse and I kind of touched on don't be afraid of failures and like failures pride is stepping stones of success. Adding on to that, I think it's always important to be able to adapt and change constantly because we are not perfect. You're not going to come up with the best idea, the first test.
00:52:37:15 - 00:52:55:12
Speaker 5
You're going to have to think about it. Maybe something does it work? You can't be afraid to. Oh, let me try this. Let me tweak that so you always need to keep on adapting. Keep changing according to the situation. I think that's a really good quality of not only a researcher, but also, a person.
00:52:55:14 - 00:53:01:03
Speaker 3
Yeah, yeah, it's all does apply both places. Yeah. Kadesh. What about yourself?
00:53:01:04 - 00:53:21:04
Speaker 1
Yeah, I agree with everyone. With everything everyone else said. And I also want to add on one more thing, and it might sound a little bit unconventional and controversial, maybe even. But the use of AI and AI tools is actually incredibly important. And in this day and age, research is getting there's no more barriers, I guess.
00:53:21:04 - 00:53:46:09
Speaker 1
Right? There's so some. But the use of AI can really, like limit those and break them down. And to get into research and start, oh, it's getting easier than ever with the use of these tools. And just for like a quick literature review or literature search and to understand more about the topic, I could very useful for that and gave me useful, to understand the topic and wrap my head around it and explain it to me in simple terms.
00:53:46:10 - 00:54:01:08
Speaker 1
Especially if it's a topic that there's not much about or it's something new that came up. Then, yeah, something that like, I could really do it. And obviously fact check your information on what I like. It's obviously not going to be right every single time. And it himself. Yeah.
00:54:01:09 - 00:54:06:02
Speaker 3
But that's how I think really good of good advice I think I've done yeah. I haven't called on you yet on this one. Right. Yeah.
00:54:06:06 - 00:54:23:04
Speaker 5
Yeah, yeah. So I think, my biggest piece of advice would just be to dream big because, if you're truly passionate about what you're doing and this is your idea that you really want to see happen, then no matter how many failures you're going to encounter, or no matter how many sleepless nights, it's all going to be worth it.
00:54:23:04 - 00:54:54:02
Speaker 5
Because this was your idea and it's what you want to do. And so I think that, like obviously, everyone has been talking about like failures and like not thinking about the award at the end. And I think that as long as you have that vision and idea in your head of what you want to see, and that in itself is the reward and it won't matter how many failures you encounter, because whatever, when you finish your goal or when you finish your research project that, like knowing that you've made, a project that has some tangible impact and is able to do what you wanted it to do is the biggest reward and the
00:54:54:02 - 00:54:57:08
Speaker 5
biggest like award that you could ever get.
00:54:57:10 - 00:54:59:10
Speaker 4
Eric, I have one more question, please.
00:54:59:10 - 00:55:01:03
Speaker 3
Yeah, I would say one more. Steve. Yeah.
00:55:01:04 - 00:55:15:11
Speaker 4
And then a comment. So, Amber, you've been doing this for a while and you're our teacher of the year. What's your number one piece of advice for students who are participating in science fairs?
00:55:15:12 - 00:55:30:04
Speaker 1
Well, when it comes to any kind of opportunity, the one thing I say, go for it, try for it, apply for it. Put yourself out there. If something comes your way and you hear about an internship or a shadowing or whatnot, go do it even. Especially if you're like, well, I don't know if I want to do this thing.
00:55:30:04 - 00:55:44:12
Speaker 1
It's a good chance to give it a try. And then if you see it in action, you may be like, well, this isn't really my jam or oh my gosh, this is amazing. This is exactly what I want to do. So that's definitely where I would go is, if anything, that's that's the philosophy I take as an educator.
00:55:44:12 - 00:55:53:07
Speaker 1
And I've attended dozens of hours of professional development and all sorts of things because it comes my way and I'm like, sure, let's check it out.
00:55:53:08 - 00:56:20:13
Speaker 4
So all of you have participated in the Arizona Science and Engineering Fair successfully. How many of you participated in ISF? The International Science and Engineering Fair? 123, three of you. Okay, so I wanted our audience to know that the international Science and Engineering fairs coming to Phoenix next year, it's going to be here, May 9th through 15.
00:56:20:14 - 00:56:37:04
Speaker 4
I'm on the planning committee for the event. It's been here before, four times. But I'm really excited about it. And I hope to see every one of you participate in ISF when it's here and and Phoenix. And with that I'm going to turn it back to you.
00:56:37:06 - 00:56:54:06
Speaker 3
Yeah. Great. Well we like we said we can keep going on and on and we just kind of scratched the surface here. But I think there's some really good nuggets. And hopefully teachers and parents and other students will get something out of this and inspire them to dig in and, and learn some more stuff. So we really appreciate your time.
00:56:54:06 - 00:57:13:01
Speaker 3
Congratulations to everybody. Good luck. For those of you who are seniors. And while those of you who are sophomores and juniors to you'll be there before you know it, but, and thanks I you know, it's cliche, but I'll say it. You know, if you ever worry about what's going to happen in the future, listen to this sort of thing, and you realize that there's there's a lot of potential out there.
00:57:13:01 - 00:57:32:00
Speaker 3
There's a lot of people who care. And, there's a lot of smart people. So, thanks for thanks for, making me feel good about the future. So we'll go ahead and close out here. Today's Aztec cast was brought to you by PDT. PDT is the southwest leading provider of engineering products and services to companies that design or manufacture physical products.
00:57:32:02 - 00:57:53:04
Speaker 3
Our team of 85 engineers, sales professionals, administrators and technicians is proud to be an elite Ansys channel partner. Now part of synopsis and PTT is also a channel partner with Stratasys and EOS for 3D printing and flown ECS for system level thermal simulation. Our engineers also provide product design simulation in 3D printing as a service, so over 30 went for over 31 years.
00:57:53:04 - 00:58:15:05
Speaker 3
Now at PDT we make innovation work, and if any of our listeners are interested in being a podcast participant or a sponsor for the Council's Aztec cast, contact Marketing at Aztec council.org to learn more about the opportunities to future, to further position you as a tech expert, influencer and innovator. So until next time, thanks for joining me, Steve.
00:58:15:05 - 00:58:27:07
Speaker 3
And I'm Eric Miller and thanks everybody out there for joining us for the AC tech cast.
00:58:27:08 - 00:58:44:13
Speaker 2
Thank you for joining us for this episode of The Aztec Cast. With the Arizona Technology Council featuring leading tech and business experts who help influence and shape our great state and the industries they serve.
00:58:44:15 - 00:58:45:08
Speaker 2
See.
Speaker 1
Welcome.
00:00:09:15 - 00:00:39:08
Speaker 2
To Aztec Caste, sponsored by the Arizona Technology Council with your hosts, Steve Zylstra and Eric Miller. Aztec Cast is dedicated to covering innovation and technology in Arizona and beyond. Aztec Cast invites leading experts to have real conversations about what is happening in the tech sector across the state of Arizona, from innovative startups to regional news companies and emerging technologies.
00:00:39:09 - 00:00:53:02
Speaker 2
Aztec Cast covers the critical issues and economic trends propelling the state's growing tech ecosystem.
00:00:53:03 - 00:01:22:11
Speaker 3
Welcome to the Arizona Technology Council's Aztec Cast. I'm Erik Miller, founder and co-owner of PDT, and today I'm joined by my co-host council president and CEO Steve Zylstra. Aztec Cast is dedicated to covering innovation and technology in Arizona and beyond, bringing together industry experts for real conversations about the trends, challenges and breakthroughs shaping our state's tech ecosystem. Today, we're joined by a group of outstanding future innovators who will share more about themselves shortly.
00:01:22:12 - 00:01:56:03
Speaker 3
Ananya. LaCour. Raghu. Elias. Chang. Shereen. Aurora. Output RCA. Sorry, I see a poder. Akshay. Karthik. Ganesh. Tillery and Amberly Struthers. And we were just joined by Kevin Kilcher. So in this episode of Aztec Cast, we'll chat with some remarkable students, recently named winners and honorable mentions in the Council's 2025 Future Innovators of the year Award. These students will be honored at the council's upcoming Governor's Celebration of Innovation in November.
00:01:56:04 - 00:02:06:12
Speaker 3
Today, these young Stem leaders will discuss their innovative projects, their passions, and their aspirations for the future. But before we dive in, Steve, can you tell our listeners a little bit about the Tech Council?
00:02:06:13 - 00:02:29:00
Speaker 4
Yes. Thank you. Eric. It's a pleasure to be here. And what a great group of, guests we have today. I'm Steve Zylstra, I'm president and CEO. The Arizona Technology Council and its foundation called the site Tech Institute. Tech Council is a statewide organization with offices in Phoenix and Tucson. We're a member based trade association.
00:02:29:00 - 00:02:55:06
Speaker 4
We have about 750 member companies across the state. We do public policy advocacy at the local, state and federal level. We do around 100 events a year. We have all kinds of publications. We have two podcasts, like the one we're on today, and we negotiate lower cost products and services for our members. So full service trade association for science and technology based companies.
00:02:55:08 - 00:02:55:15
Speaker 4
Excellent.
00:02:55:15 - 00:03:11:01
Speaker 3
Very good. Well, we have a lot of people on today. And the first thing you want to do is kind of learn a little about each of you. I think the best way to do that is, I'll just call your name and I'm going to go in reverse alphabetical order because you're probably used to going the other way.
00:03:11:01 - 00:03:17:05
Speaker 3
So we'll go ahead and start with, Amber, you show up first on my list.
00:03:17:06 - 00:03:31:05
Speaker 1
Hi. I'm, doctor Amber Struthers. I currently teach in the Tempe Union High School District. I am split between Corona del Sol High School and, Tempe High School. And my assignment this year is computer programing and our new program automation or robotics? Excellent.
00:03:31:05 - 00:03:37:14
Speaker 3
Very good. And then Sia.
00:03:38:00 - 00:03:42:12
Speaker 3
Up! We can't hear your ear. Like is up high. There we go.
00:03:42:13 - 00:03:43:09
Speaker 5
This.
00:03:43:10 - 00:03:44:08
Speaker 3
There we go. Perfect.
00:03:44:09 - 00:04:11:08
Speaker 5
Perfect. Hi. My name is Steve. I have a 12th grader at Lake High School, and the research that I focused on was creating a material that changes color and response to mind based pollutants. It's very prevalent issue here in Arizona. But current detection equipment cost like thousands of dollars. And so my material costs just less than dollars and changes color in response to these pollutants.
00:04:11:09 - 00:04:14:15
Speaker 3
Very cool. I can't wait to talk more about that. Shereen.
00:04:15:00 - 00:04:32:05
Speaker 5
Hi everyone. My name is Shirin. I'm a sophomore at this channel and my research focuses on finding a natural, more accessible and cheaper alternative to Alzheimer's disease treatments by using a just safflower melanogaster model or fruit flies.
00:04:32:06 - 00:04:42:14
Speaker 3
Very cool, very cool. And then, Kevin, are you a student? No, I don't think so. Can you tell us a little bit about yourself, Kevin?
00:04:42:15 - 00:04:43:13
Speaker 4
You mean me, right?
00:04:43:14 - 00:04:45:13
Speaker 3
Yes, please.
00:04:45:14 - 00:05:17:12
Speaker 4
Oh, no. No, no, I am Kevin Kilcher. I'm the past president of of Caesar, the Arizona Council of Engineering and Scientific Associations. My role here is as the administrator of the, Future innovator and the teacher of the year awards. And, and I, I congratulate all of the, the, the, folks here that that have been, selected.
00:05:17:13 - 00:05:22:05
Speaker 3
Excellent. Well, thanks for joining us today, Ganesh.
00:05:22:07 - 00:05:38:09
Speaker 1
Hi. My name is Ganesh. I'm a fourth grader currently studying at Bass Fury High School. And my research focuses on modeling neurons in the brain. Specifically in the prefrontal cortex and in models, then through multiple, genetic factors.
00:05:38:10 - 00:05:40:07
Speaker 4
Very cool, very cool.
00:05:40:08 - 00:05:42:05
Speaker 3
Elias.
00:05:42:07 - 00:05:58:06
Speaker 1
Hello. My name is Elias Chang. I am a current senior at basis Mason and my research focused on creating an AI training algorithm that learns human anatomy within CT scans with the hope of improving lung nodule segmentation and cancer detection overall.
00:05:58:07 - 00:06:00:04
Speaker 4
Very cool, very cool.
00:06:00:05 - 00:06:02:04
Speaker 3
And then Ananya.
00:06:02:05 - 00:06:21:05
Speaker 5
Yeah. So hi. My name is an annual graduate and I'm a junior at Hamilton High School. My project essentially uses a machine learning model in order to diagnose depression and machine learning techniques to identify genetic biomarkers of depression based off of RNA sequencing data. I then use those biomarkers in order to create the chemical composition of a drug against depression.
00:06:21:05 - 00:06:24:09
Speaker 5
On a molecular docking software plant.
00:06:24:11 - 00:06:29:11
Speaker 3
And then, you're used to going first, but now you get to go last. Actually.
00:06:29:12 - 00:06:53:04
Speaker 4
My name is Erica. I just want to mention for our audience that all of these students and our teacher here today have, won at the governor's celebration of innovation. This is, annual awards program put on by the Arizona Technology Council in collaboration with the Arizona Commerce Authority. So this is a very, very high honor.
00:06:53:05 - 00:06:56:13
Speaker 4
And, so good to have them all here today. Yeah.
00:06:56:14 - 00:06:59:15
Speaker 3
Yes, definitely. Cool. Actually.
00:07:00:00 - 00:07:16:09
Speaker 4
My name is Oxford and I'm a fourth grader at Hamilton High School. And my project focused on creating a machine learning algorithm that helps create a new low cost alternative for remotely controlling robotic hands. Very cool. Very cool.
00:07:16:10 - 00:07:35:11
Speaker 3
So as our listeners, as de pointed out, and our listeners have probably figured out as we were going around the room, is all these students have been doing, they're not just random students we picked up off the street. They are doing research and presented that research to, to to a group that, decided which ones would, we'd like to show off at the upcoming GCSE.
00:07:35:13 - 00:07:38:08
Speaker 3
And so, Steve, do you want to do you want to take the first question?
00:07:38:09 - 00:08:01:00
Speaker 4
Yes I do. So the work that you do is not easy. And, there are always challenges. So if each of you you could touch on, the biggest challenge you faced while developing your project and how you overcame. And, whoever wants to go first.
00:08:01:01 - 00:08:02:00
Speaker 4
Otherwise, I'm going to.
00:08:02:01 - 00:08:25:04
Speaker 1
Go ahead and. Yeah, I'll go ahead and talk about my piece, which oriented towards automation, robotics. One of the things that I kind of noticed is a gap in, need. There is definitely this high kind of community college level of, curriculum and material. And then there's a little bit in the high school and whatnot. So I noticed that there was this real gap between introductory pulling them into that depth.
00:08:25:04 - 00:08:29:10
Speaker 1
And so that was one of the things I was focusing on was getting that depth.
00:08:29:11 - 00:08:33:14
Speaker 4
All right. I'm going to call you out now. So so yeah.
00:08:33:15 - 00:08:53:06
Speaker 5
That's a great question. And I think it's something that kind of like precludes students from going into research is just the funding. As a high school student, I think the greatest part about being a student is you have these massive, massive ideas and you haven't gotten to that point in your life where you start thinking of ideas as unrealistic.
00:08:53:07 - 00:09:18:04
Speaker 5
So working within your means and working with the within a budget honestly makes your project more compelling. I found that the greatest way to tackle resource barriers when it comes to running a research project yourself is to look for community mentors. My high school chemistry teacher was the biggest, biggest mentor through this whole process. I did my whole experiment in the back of her classroom.
00:09:18:05 - 00:09:36:12
Speaker 5
And we work together to find ways to, substitute materials that were not necessarily accessible. And so to any students who are going into research, I would say if you come up with that barrier of, oh, how do I get access to this? It's just about being creative and finding that workaround.
00:09:36:13 - 00:10:12:10
Speaker 4
Very cool action. I think for the biggest challenge that I had, especially regarding my project, is just essentially trying to like build your kind of going off of a course that build your idea around like the resources you had and like, for example, for us, like the robotic hand that we use to test our idea was really low cost and like use the resources that we were only like, available to and like for our first idea, we wanted to like use a robotic hands like manipulate objects.
00:10:12:11 - 00:10:34:00
Speaker 4
But like unfortunately, since the robotic hand was like really low cost and we had to like make use of what we had, like we couldn't really do that first project with it. So we had to, like, change our project around to what it is now. And rather than like use a robotic hand to control objects, we wanted to like create something that could control the robotic hand itself.
00:10:34:00 - 00:10:52:07
Speaker 4
And it's really just like building your ideas around what you have. That comes to like the biggest challenge, especially, regarding my project and probably several other projects as well. Agility and adaptability. Right. Ananya.
00:10:52:08 - 00:11:12:03
Speaker 5
Yeah. So another thing to add is that or for me, but specifically with my project, there was a huge learning curve that I had to overcome because all the content that I was, doing in my project was new to me at the beginning. Like I was looking into topics like PCA and, being able to find like specific transduction pathways.
00:11:12:03 - 00:11:47:08
Speaker 5
And so being able to do that research and to learn those different topics, was something that I was able to or that was the greatest challenge in my perspective and I was able to overcome by, you know, consulting my teachers and asking them about questions that I had regarding biology or like, for example, I was also part of the ASU seed program, and so consulting with my professor in there and asking about the machine learning aspect of my project to get a better understanding of, my project and the overall, things that I was doing was really essential and helpful to overcome that barrier of the huge learning curve.
00:11:47:10 - 00:11:50:11
Speaker 4
Very cool. Ganesh.
00:11:50:12 - 00:12:12:00
Speaker 1
Yeah, I'll go with you on on the fact that there's a huge learning curve for me. Specifically, I did a computational biology project and along with that, there's obviously there's a lot of machine learning that goes along with that. And that took a lot of learning. Especially with the libraries and the languages. And another thing was actually just like finding the data sets, in the field of computational biology.
00:12:12:00 - 00:12:31:05
Speaker 1
And that's where regard you can have an idea, but if you don't have the methods to execute that idea, it's pointless, right? Because for a lot of fields and a lot of ideas that people might have, you don't have the capability to actually execute and find all the materials for that project. So you have to be kind of resourceful, as others said.
00:12:31:06 - 00:12:45:00
Speaker 1
And it was a big thing to finding a data set to match your project or just find a data set that was new and build your project off of that, which is a very interesting thing that I learned about my time doing research.
00:12:45:01 - 00:12:50:15
Speaker 4
All right. Sherene, I know you were having issues with, did you hear the question? Hi.
00:12:51:00 - 00:12:55:13
Speaker 5
So, yeah, that that I got in my camera. Start tracking. Could you fit the question?
00:12:55:15 - 00:13:09:02
Speaker 4
Sure. So, obviously, research is, a difficult challenge. What what do you what are the biggest challenges you faced while developing your project, and how did you overcome it?
00:13:09:03 - 00:13:35:13
Speaker 5
Yeah. So, for me, one of the biggest projects I had see us talk about, like, funding that definitely applied in my case, as well as the like, time commitment and effort, especially since I used over 2200 files. It was a lot to get all the funding to get those flies, as well as the time needed to, separate the slides based based on gender across the flies behavioral analysis.
00:13:35:14 - 00:13:59:03
Speaker 5
In addition to my school work, are spending over six hours a day. Just being these flies. The biggest scientific challenge there for me was probably crossing flies. So because you can't really get flies with Alzheimer's disease. So I had to take flies that expressed state and genes and made them so that they would express a certain phenotype genotype and phenotype.
00:13:59:04 - 00:14:08:08
Speaker 5
So that was one of the hardest things for me, especially, like figuring out the genetics of that and ensuring that they mated with the correct gene.
00:14:08:10 - 00:14:12:01
Speaker 4
Excellent. Finally, Alliance.
00:14:12:02 - 00:14:41:10
Speaker 1
Yeah. So, one thing I want to touch on is actually on a second. Ganesh. Because. Or Ganesh because my project also is on machine learning. Right. So finding a lot of high quality data and doing all the pre-processing is definitely a pain, even though it's a crucial step in the pipeline. And I guess the biggest thing for me is kind of building my neural network pipeline or the AI model pipeline because, utilizing for for my project, I utilize multiple GPUs, which are the, graphics processing units to speed up the training.
00:14:41:10 - 00:15:02:04
Speaker 1
And so kind of getting all the optimization and the memory usage for my code. Correct. Was a huge trial. I had to go through a lot of trial and error, but I guess just building on and the resources already out there, because a lot of people have done projects related to AI. And so even if it's not the.
00:15:02:05 - 00:15:07:11
Speaker 1
Same, I'm working on learning from their experience and maybe solutions they found definitely helped.
00:15:07:12 - 00:15:16:07
Speaker 4
Excellent. And and Amber, what do you believe makes education so powerful in shaping students futures?
00:15:16:08 - 00:15:42:05
Speaker 1
One of the things I definitely noticed is, Stem is one of those you can have an introductory level success story with a technician all the way up to high level PhD research, and it's one of those fields where I think people can really students can really see themselves in all facets of it. And that's one of the things that I kind of emphasizes that you can be truly successful when you absolutely every step of this, those Stem fields, we need individuals to fill those roles.
00:15:42:06 - 00:15:56:09
Speaker 1
So I think it's one that, you know, students can find success. And I've seen stories of students, you know, starting as a technician and working their way all the way up to grad school. So I've and it's one of those and I think it really leads to those kind of opportunities.
00:15:56:11 - 00:15:58:02
Speaker 4
All right. Back to your.
00:15:58:03 - 00:16:16:04
Speaker 3
Yeah. So, I'd like to these are pretty. What I want to do is dig into each of your research projects so you don't have time for that. So, think about what is the most exciting thing you've learned through this experience. We talked about your challenges. But what was it kind of a surprise or exciting thing you learned?
00:16:16:04 - 00:16:25:11
Speaker 3
And then what do you plan to do to build on that knowledge in the future? So, I'll just kind of randomly pick here. I'll go with Elia. Since you went last, last time.
00:16:25:12 - 00:16:45:04
Speaker 1
Yeah. So I guess, honestly, there might be a few things. I don't know if I could point one, I know, something that we already touched on is kind of learning how to learn and research on your own, I think is pretty cool, like working under a mentor, but then also knowing that you're capable of going out and finding knowledge that you weren't you didn't know before.
00:16:45:04 - 00:17:06:13
Speaker 1
Like, for me, my AI experience was more on the minimal side. So I guess by learning how to learn, I was a super exciting experience for me. And then along that same line, knowing that, not just how to use AI, but understanding, mathematics behind it and, optimization that goes on behind the background for me was pretty exciting.
00:17:06:13 - 00:17:13:02
Speaker 1
And I guess in the future, I definitely plan on exploring more applications of AI as well in a future work.
00:17:13:03 - 00:17:15:03
Speaker 4
Cool.
00:17:15:04 - 00:17:21:00
Speaker 3
How about you, Shereen? What's your biggest, takeaway or surprise or exciting bit?
00:17:21:01 - 00:17:21:15
Speaker 4
Yeah, like.
00:17:22:00 - 00:17:45:14
Speaker 5
I said, coming up with a topic and doing the initial research is always really, really fun. I really enjoy, like, looking through all the articles. For me, the most exciting part was raising my feet size. I mean, you have 3002 guys at home. It's obviously going to be a lot of fun. They were like little pets. So I learned how to like all the different genetic stuff.
00:17:45:14 - 00:18:03:05
Speaker 5
How to be a fruit flies. Virgin fruit flies. I did the microscopes and, like, alter their genes as well as conduct behavior assays. So all those skills can be used in the future with different animal models. And yeah, I think that was really, really cooking.
00:18:03:07 - 00:18:05:10
Speaker 4
Pretty cool. Okay, cool.
00:18:05:11 - 00:18:09:05
Speaker 3
What about you can ash, what was your big takeaway?
00:18:09:06 - 00:18:37:15
Speaker 1
The most fun and exciting for, I'm sure, probably like, what we do with this is when your code compiles. Especially, like, after long training. Yeah. Long hours of training and data processing. Just like seeing your code crash. Certainly, like, demoralizing. But that one instead works is like. It's really thrilling. And that also provided insights to me as to how, like, gene expression, neuron structure, actually, actually and show neuron morphology.
00:18:38:01 - 00:18:48:15
Speaker 1
And that was actually really interesting because I hadn't seen any papers or anything about that before. Since it was a new data set. And so it was fun to make something novel that that hasn't been introduced into PubMed for.
00:18:49:00 - 00:18:50:00
Speaker 4
Cool.
00:18:50:02 - 00:19:01:09
Speaker 3
Yeah, I can tell you, it never gets old. I just went through that just, this morning I compiled something and it worked. And I was like, yeah, a little adrenaline rush. It's positive thing. Yeah. So what about yourself?
00:19:01:10 - 00:19:02:06
Speaker 4
00:19:02:07 - 00:19:28:07
Speaker 5
Well, I, I love research. I think it's, like, embedded in my bones, but I think the most exciting part is the social aspect of it. Like going to conferences, going to fairs, going to meet all of the other participants and just talking about your project, and sharing it. I think, one of the competitions I compete at, one of my judges ended up having, surgeon syndrome, which is the disease that is triggered by the pollutants.
00:19:28:07 - 00:19:47:10
Speaker 5
My material detects. And so we had to have, like, a big conversation about, the real world impact of my project. And I think, like, sometimes with science, you can get so lost in all the different processes and all of your data that you forget what you're trying to address and why you got interested in the first place.
00:19:47:13 - 00:19:55:09
Speaker 5
So I just think having opportunities like this where I get to freely just talk about my project is always my favorite part.
00:19:55:10 - 00:20:06:09
Speaker 3
That's great. That's good. And that's a very positive aspect because, the social can be a lot of fun and it'll serve you through the rest of your life. That's one of my favorite parts, too. Ananya. Okay.
00:20:06:11 - 00:20:27:08
Speaker 5
Yeah. So something specific to more specific to my project that I thought was, like, really interesting was the ability to do molecular docking, because in my previous projects, I used, and trained AI models, but this time I was able to add a different component with molecular docking and to being able to test out different, molecules and then test out their binding affinities.
00:20:27:09 - 00:20:47:11
Speaker 5
I thought just that aspect of learning something completely new and going into that different field was very, very interesting. And exciting for me because I was able to make some discoveries, on like this automated software, which, is kind of interesting and kind of where I want to go in my future, where I'm looking at how can we use technology to enhance the field of biology?
00:20:47:13 - 00:20:48:06
Speaker 4
Okay, cool.
00:20:48:06 - 00:20:52:08
Speaker 3
Okay, cool. And actually, I think your your last here on this list.
00:20:52:09 - 00:21:14:09
Speaker 4
Yeah. So I think like in regards to my project, the most like exciting thing I did was I really learned like how to 3D print. I didn't know how to 3D print before and like, I really focus more on machine learning, but, like, getting to know how to, like, 3D print and how to operate a 3D printer was probably the most exciting part.
00:21:14:11 - 00:21:33:14
Speaker 4
And then, other than that, like, also like, I worked in a lab, so, like, working with my, teammates in my lab, as well as, like, getting to know my professor and, like, everyone that worked in the lab was also really exciting for me because it was like a new experience. I hadn't worked in the lab before.
00:21:33:15 - 00:21:48:12
Speaker 4
Good, good. So. So, this time I'm going to start with Amber and with with Kevin. Amber, can you share a moment or a project from your classroom that really captures why you love teaching?
00:21:48:13 - 00:22:09:03
Speaker 1
That would be. That's definitely a challenging one for me. Answer, because I can definitely think of many projects. But one of the things that really, I, recently enjoyed is, doing animatronics. So we are currently using microcontrollers, Arduinos, to be able to make little skeleton animatronics for the Halloween season. And it's a brand new project for me.
00:22:09:03 - 00:22:28:01
Speaker 1
I've never, I've played with Arduinos before, but never in this context. And the students are absolutely having a blast. And I'm seeing students that had previously not been as comfortable with coding, really finding like a connection because they want to get that project done and that cool little thing finished up. So that's one that's been, I definitely am enjoying.
00:22:28:02 - 00:23:01:06
Speaker 4
Very, very cool. So my next question is, for each of the students is how do you think your project could make a real world impact in the future? Actually, let's start with you. Yeah. So a lot of previous methods, like like I said before, my projects focused on controlling robotic hands remotely and essentially like you want to, like, take your hand and be able to, like, have, like, cameras or like devices in your hand and be able to control, another robotic hand remotely.
00:23:01:07 - 00:23:24:07
Speaker 4
And I would say, like there's really two big real world impacts. The first one is like a lot of previous approaches cost like thousands of dollars. Like for example, you have like, VR as well as like they use these in like movie studios, like motion tracking systems where you like, put trackers on your bodies and like, it would be able to, like, track the motion.
00:23:24:08 - 00:23:50:04
Speaker 4
Those are like really industrial and, like, costs anywhere from like 5000 to $10,000. So that's like one one of the main impacts was like creating a more low cost solution that is able to like, adjust like the price gap. And then the second one builds off of that, like, it's like being able to democratize the accessibility of these low cost solutions to like, other individuals.
00:23:50:04 - 00:24:11:14
Speaker 4
So like for example, like, open source, the code and then so it's like accessible to everyone and then like individuals and like research institutions that may also not have as much funding they are able to build off of, like our idea, since it's already low cost and they can expand upon it rather than having like to step into the field itself.
00:24:11:14 - 00:24:18:04
Speaker 4
Like a big price jump that they have to make. Very cool. Ananya.
00:24:18:05 - 00:24:52:00
Speaker 5
Yeah, so I think this is actually a really, important question because for my project specifically, I'm focusing on depression and in the field of like mental health, the idea of using like one's biological profile to, diagnose and treat depression is kind of a new topic in the field of, depression, mental health. And so I think that my project is not only am I able to create an objective way to first diagnose depression and then also treat depression, but it's, raising awareness about how our biology is also an important factor to these mental health disorders.
00:24:52:00 - 00:25:09:04
Speaker 5
And that's the kind of, research that I'm trying to make in the world or like in our scientific community, to show that there is a different side to these mental health disorders. And it brings about that awareness by showing that there is research that proves that there is some biology behind depression.
00:25:09:05 - 00:25:15:03
Speaker 4
That's so important. And almost all of us have depression. So.
00:25:15:04 - 00:25:16:12
Speaker 1
So I think.
00:25:16:13 - 00:25:43:10
Speaker 5
Sorry if I cut you off. But I think for my project specifically, for a little bit context, there are pollutants in the air called, silica and uranium that are really common from mines and rural and indigenous communities in Arizona. Breathe in some of the highest rates in the country of these pollutants. And as a result, they suffer from, a disease called Sorrento syndrome.
00:25:43:11 - 00:26:04:15
Speaker 5
And this disease takes six years on average. Diagnose. Not because we we don't have a, treatment plan, but simply because it is so expensive and such a tedious task. And so to, actually explain about making a material that is so cheap and and so accessible, it kind of brings science to the people and it reminds you, like, who you're serving.
00:26:05:00 - 00:26:24:10
Speaker 5
I think that this is the like it impacts a lot of people because it impacts communities that are often forgotten in the field of health care. And I think it brings attention to, like, scientific developments and advancements should be about equity, right? Like a solution is only as good of a solution if it can serve everybody.
00:26:24:12 - 00:26:34:12
Speaker 5
And so I think, this research is important, simply because it does provide that extra perspective or like that level of nuance to health care.
00:26:34:13 - 00:26:40:11
Speaker 4
Excellent. All right. Good. Yeah.
00:26:40:12 - 00:27:12:09
Speaker 1
Just to contextualize a little bit on my project, a few months ago or something, researchers actually, like, completely covered the fly brain and reconstructed neuron for neuron. So that's kind of how I based my project off of. And the starting point for this was actually to license it out to research labs. And as a result, these researchers could use it, and try and figure out like functions and stuff like, which neurons have which genes and like which proteins are associated with each of them.
00:27:12:10 - 00:27:39:07
Speaker 1
And that could help with like diagnosing pathologies. And it could also help with like a lot of clinical data. So like, I think by predicting spatial and temporal generation in the area of the brain I'm working on, it could guide early diagnosis or precise treatments for conditions like Alzheimer's or neurodegenerative diseases. Because it's essentially just having a, a brain scan for each individual patient.
00:27:39:09 - 00:27:49:10
Speaker 1
And since it's open source research labs, anyone can use it, to figure out, like, what their brain map looks like. And since,
00:27:49:11 - 00:27:52:03
Speaker 4
Thank you, Elias.
00:27:52:05 - 00:28:16:05
Speaker 1
Yeah. So, because my, my project focus on improving, the algorithm specifically, what I did is I focused on learning anatomy because the idea, the intuition behind it is that if models are able to look at, like, CT scans and break them down by structure, just like human doctors.
00:28:16:07 - 00:28:46:09
Speaker 1
Do, that will be able to improve the recognition of abnormalities down the line. So because my project showed that my model can have greater accuracy and requires less data, the hope is that this can be implemented either into hospital systems or radiologists workflows to improve early diagnosis. And that's pretty critical because in cases such as lung cancer, two thirds of people diagnosed with lung cancer are already in their advanced stages and this around 66% of these patients are.
00:28:46:12 - 00:29:03:09
Speaker 1
And by that point, there's no really feasible treatment. So the best way to tackle this is really to pick up on those signs earlier and give treatment then. So the goal really is to improve patient outcomes and, streamline workflows.
00:29:03:11 - 00:29:05:13
Speaker 4
Thank you. And Sharon.
00:29:05:15 - 00:29:45:09
Speaker 5
So Alzheimer's disease, which my project address is currently the seventh leading cause of death worldwide. And it's projected to impact over 14 million people by 2060 and create treatment. I collect ICO industries, inhibitors and monoclonal antibodies and while these are available, they're really expensive, costing over $30,000 a year. And they're not usually accessible from, rural communities. So from a social aspect, my project investigated a natural plant based extract called ashwagandha, which is really easy to find in grocery stores, very cheap.
00:29:45:11 - 00:30:17:12
Speaker 5
And it showed that it like reduced the Alzheimer's disease pathology and displayed, which can be shown in humans as well. From the more scientific aspect, my project was novel in a couple different ways. So it, used a different type of assay. So use the climbing and flight assays to assess cognitive and motor function in the fruit flies, as well as assess the chronic and long term effects of supplementation of ashwagandha on this Alzheimer's disease pathology and the performance of the fruit flies.
00:30:17:13 - 00:30:30:10
Speaker 5
So it my project it provides this real world impact of a more natural, safer and more accessible treatment for Alzheimer's disease that could be applied to other neurodegenerative diseases as well.
00:30:30:12 - 00:31:11:02
Speaker 4
How fabulous is that? That's called great. Great. So so current. CSA has been supporting the Tech Council for many, many years and helping us, select the future innovators, and the teacher of the year. And we thank you for that. Was there anything about, this particular cohort that you found? Unusual? Outstanding? I know it's hard to compare, but, or anything about the process that was different this year that, you use in your, in your unmute.
00:31:11:04 - 00:31:15:15
Speaker 4
Thank you. The process that this year.
00:31:16:02 - 00:31:17:06
Speaker 1
00:31:17:07 - 00:32:04:07
Speaker 4
Followed the process in most of the previous year. We are very fortunate in Arizona to have a very strong, scientific, community, I guess, of, of events that that highlight students and, and, we, we actually, rely very heavily on, that the only, truly unusual thing that this year was that almost all of the, the, the, students submitted their entries later than in any other year.
00:32:04:08 - 00:32:33:09
Speaker 4
And this year, we, apparently had quite a few procrastinators, but, we, eventually got got there and, I, I forgot, I believe we had, 22. I think that this year of, of, all of them top notch students and it was very difficult to actually, find the top of the top, excellent area.
00:32:33:11 - 00:32:34:04
Speaker 4
Back to you.
00:32:34:08 - 00:32:49:15
Speaker 3
Yeah. So we talked a little bit about what you think your technology could do in the future, but let's talk about what you're going to do in the future. So we really like to hear and when we've done this before, this has been one of the things that people like to hear the most is, you know what? What's next for you?
00:32:50:01 - 00:32:55:12
Speaker 3
School work, what do you have planned? So I'll start with Srini.
00:32:55:13 - 00:33:20:05
Speaker 5
Yeah. So I've always been really interested in like, the medicine healthcare space as well as like, accessibility and equity, making sure that everyone gets the same resources. So right now, I'm a sophomore in high school. I have a little bit of time to continue pursuing my scientific research endeavors, as well as other endeavors in scientific competitions and more.
00:33:20:06 - 00:33:30:02
Speaker 5
In the future, I'd like to pursue medicine, especially, making a meaningful impact on my community, defining some accessible treatment.
00:33:30:03 - 00:33:30:12
Speaker 4
Oh, cool.
00:33:30:13 - 00:33:34:01
Speaker 3
Very good. Elias.
00:33:34:03 - 00:33:53:10
Speaker 1
So, as a senior, right? I'm going to be heading off to college next year. So, and we have a few other seniors here as well. So for me, I'm hoping to major in maybe electrical engineering or computer science, whichever one I haven't really decided yet. It's dependent. But when I'm there, I'm hoping to continue my research.
00:33:53:12 - 00:34:18:02
Speaker 1
And I development and computer intelligence kind of in general. So I'm not laser focused on the medical applications, but also exploring the other ways that, having autonomous computer programs are able to benefit society. And so along with hopefully getting a research position at a lab, whichever university I go to, I'm also hoping to explore, embodied intelligence as well.
00:34:18:02 - 00:34:41:10
Speaker 1
So, like, actually, this project on robotics is some thing I hope to explore as well in the future. And ultimately my goal is to target these the devices I developed, towards people's benefit. So that could be in healthcare. Having, assistive robotics and exoskeletons are something I'm passionate about pursuing in the future. And I'm also curious about venturing into the business space as well.
00:34:41:10 - 00:34:52:05
Speaker 1
That way we can get, actual product over to users and really impact their lives. So that's kind of a rough outline, but it might change, you know, I'm open to different possibilities.
00:34:52:08 - 00:34:53:08
Speaker 4
Okay, good.
00:34:53:09 - 00:35:01:05
Speaker 3
So when right now you guys are applying to college, right. You haven't heard back yet, right? Okay. Yeah. Well good luck to everybody. Ganesh.
00:35:01:06 - 00:35:31:00
Speaker 1
Yeah. Like Elias, I'm also a senior in high school and also in college. I'm planning to major in biomedical engineering, and I hope to do this primary, which is two inches. I haven't really decided if I want to go into medicine or if I want to go in tech. And so, kind of leaves me, a choice into which ones I'm going to, in the future, I hope to do something either in the clinical space or research space, whether it be product development or just, be a doctor in general.
00:35:31:01 - 00:35:35:06
Speaker 4
Cool. Or both. Yeah. Yeah, maybe. See? Yeah, yeah.
00:35:35:06 - 00:36:02:04
Speaker 5
So I'm also a senior in high school, and with college decisions coming up, that's a very big thing on my mind. But, the thing, in chemistry and material science, with the big, the big emphasis on sustainability, making sustainable solutions that are like, tangible and accessible and making those like putting those out on the market is really what my, my next big focus is.
00:36:02:05 - 00:36:23:00
Speaker 5
And then as per college, I'm very excited to see research and lab space. I've mostly done research in my chemistry classroom, which is just a very different experience, but I'm also excited again, to meet some insanely accomplished and passionate individuals and college and take on those endeavors. But yeah, right now it's chemistry.
00:36:23:01 - 00:36:25:03
Speaker 4
Yeah. Cool. Excellent.
00:36:25:05 - 00:36:27:00
Speaker 3
And, yeah.
00:36:27:01 - 00:36:48:08
Speaker 5
Yeah. So I'm actually a junior in high school, so I've got a little bit of time left until college. Yeah. But so basically, I'm kind of in the same boat as Shereen, like, right now. I just want to continue doing my own scientific research at home or like, in the lab, and then continue competing in different sides competitions and presenting my work and being able to really make that big impact on the community.
00:36:48:08 - 00:36:50:01
Speaker 5
With the research that I'm doing.
00:36:50:03 - 00:36:51:14
Speaker 4
Cool. Very cool.
00:36:51:15 - 00:36:54:07
Speaker 3
And actually you get the final word on this one.
00:36:54:08 - 00:37:33:12
Speaker 4
So I'm a senior in high school, so like, yeah, college decisions come out soon. So like I'll be heading to college and, I plan on doing biomedical engineering, but I want to focus more on, like, the computer side of it. So, I do like a combination of biomedical engineering and computer engineering, and then, I want to, like, I really want to focus on the research side of things, but, like, instead of academia, I would want to go, like, take my research into, like, the market and like the products that develop and, like, put them out on the market.
00:37:33:12 - 00:37:41:06
Speaker 4
So more of like a startup, kind of thing rather than pursuing it through academia.
00:37:41:07 - 00:37:57:14
Speaker 3
Exciting, exciting. It's, yeah, so much so there's a lot of potential out there and new technology coming as well to help you get it done. So, you'll be on the leading edge of, applying AI. So be very exciting time. Very exciting time. So go ahead, Steve.
00:37:57:15 - 00:38:11:02
Speaker 4
If I may. Yeah. Amber, how do you help students see the connection between what they're learning and the real world technology and innovations that are happening right here in Arizona?
00:38:11:04 - 00:38:27:08
Speaker 1
So one thing I definitely do is make sure that I am aware and connected. So I, make it a point to kind of pursue opportunities and whatnot. I recently was able to attend the semiconductor conference and being able to kind of see where things were going, because this is it's new to me. It's not my background.
00:38:27:08 - 00:38:43:00
Speaker 1
And so, I definitely like to stay up on things. I listen to Science Friday every week and whatnot, and so try to bring that kind of, little bits and pieces as we go to kind of see where we're going and things that I. Wow. And that's one thing I definitely notice is when something is wow to me, and I really want to share it.
00:38:43:01 - 00:38:48:10
Speaker 1
Often the students are like, wow, that's really interesting. So that's one of the ways that I approach it.
00:38:48:12 - 00:39:09:04
Speaker 4
So for the students, can you tell us how, your teachers or mentors, supported you through, this process, and helped you achieve your goals? And let's start with, Sia.
00:39:09:05 - 00:39:10:02
Speaker 1
So,
00:39:10:03 - 00:39:29:10
Speaker 5
Shout out Miss Larson, my chemistry teacher. My. If you come teacher. I've talked about her a bit, but I think just like she has so much passion for chemistry, and she kind of gave me my passion for chemistry, which I just saw her, like a day or so ago. And, the Nobel for chemistry came out, and it was for metal organic frameworks.
00:39:29:11 - 00:39:50:11
Speaker 5
And the basis of my project last year was MOFs was metal organic frameworks. And so we were it was like the homecoming carnival. And we're just sitting there in the street talking about like the molecular structure of this compound and the MOF, that one. And it was very much nerd fest. But like having that person just share your passion.
00:39:50:12 - 00:40:13:08
Speaker 5
And the other thing is, like teachers, of course, have so much expertise in your topic, but they're an adult. Like having someone with that level of authority to have that faith in you, can help garner some of that faith in their student themselves. And I think they're also just a great sounding board. They've seen plenty of projects blow up in their classroom, so they know.
00:40:13:09 - 00:40:23:00
Speaker 5
And we want to avoid whatnot, too. But yeah, it's just having that constant rock. And that support system will help you keep going on those those hard nights.
00:40:23:02 - 00:40:29:10
Speaker 4
And so important. Sure. Yeah. Ushering.
00:40:29:11 - 00:40:55:14
Speaker 5
So there's a pretty my teacher is like, without that I would not be here for sure. And like CSA they act as such a nice support system where they're constantly there for you, whether it's like, oh, I'm freaking out. Easy stuff is coming soon to like, can you give me ideas on how to format this one slide? It's they're always there and they're always ready to give their advice for me, particularly my bio and chem teachers.
00:40:55:14 - 00:41:22:09
Speaker 5
They were instrumental to me obtaining their fruit flies and helping me with the whole ordering process, because that was a really complicated process as a as a professor at a local university, he learned me a lot of equipment and my best stocks to practice. So just having those people who are always reading for you and pretty for you, it's truly like it's very supportive and it's why I'm here today.
00:41:22:10 - 00:41:26:05
Speaker 4
Excellent. Thank you. Elias.
00:41:26:06 - 00:41:58:12
Speaker 1
So, my mentor is Doctor Jaime Lang at ASU, who I'm working under with the same program. And besides, granting access for supercomputer at ASU, which is absolutely pivotal for my project. I guess the advice that and the resources he gave me were just, foundational in order to get to where I am today. Like, coming in with very minimal AI knowledge, she gave me a lot of resources and articles to read, to learn and go through on my own pace to pick up my knowledge for my project.
00:41:58:12 - 00:42:20:00
Speaker 1
And, whenever, when I came up with my idea, I emailed him for advice and she'd give me some tips on what to include or things that I could do to, make my study stronger. And I guess he always ensured I did quality work and able to. But beyond beyond what I thought was possible and really challenged me.
00:42:20:00 - 00:42:24:08
Speaker 1
And so I'm very grateful for his support and mentorship.
00:42:24:09 - 00:42:27:07
Speaker 4
That's very cool to even ask you, professor, as your well man.
00:42:27:08 - 00:42:31:00
Speaker 3
And I was wondering how you got access to all those GPUs now.
00:42:31:02 - 00:42:31:15
Speaker 4
Yeah, yeah.
00:42:32:01 - 00:42:38:12
Speaker 1
I definitely if I tried to run them on my own computer, I would have absolutely fried it up. Yeah, yeah.
00:42:38:13 - 00:42:41:15
Speaker 4
All right. Ganesh.
00:42:42:00 - 00:43:13:01
Speaker 1
Snow I had I didn't have a specific mentor under my project, but I'd like to shout out doctor Lee from Midwest University. And he helped a lot with the research project I was pursuing with him. And also the air and space and the translator over to my project in the sense that it was a lot of the same and similar machine learning techniques and processes, and that really helped me like figure out how to do each part of the project, even because I was spearheading this project that I submitted for Easy Stuff alone.
00:43:13:02 - 00:43:30:13
Speaker 1
The other one, though, that I did with Artemis, he was kind of the Pi, so I got to learn a lot from him working under him. I'm incredibly grateful for that. Very thankful as well. And yeah, so I learned a lot from him about, like, machine learning techniques. And I couldn't get any GPU access to the Russian university because it wasn't really affiliated.
00:43:30:13 - 00:43:38:06
Speaker 1
But yeah, I could run it on Google Cloud CPUs and GPUs, which was also really helpful.
00:43:38:07 - 00:44:11:05
Speaker 4
Yeah, very good actually. Yeah. So my mentor is, professor J things sun. ASU so like, I would like to show him out since he helped us provide, he provide us so a lot of resources. And then another person I worked with a lot, was a graduate student in the same lab, named Rohan. He helped he was the main one that, like, guided us through, like, everything that we did coming down to, like, building our robotic and and the machine learning.
00:44:11:06 - 00:44:37:03
Speaker 4
And then I would also like to shout out my teammate Alex Wong and like he, he's like, more experienced with, like, more of building the robotic hand itself. And then I focus a lot on the machine learning. So like, having like a teammate as well, helped a lot in the process. And then finally, I would like to show my parents because they had a lot of emotional support.
00:44:37:03 - 00:45:03:05
Speaker 4
They helped me a lot through the process, especially when I was like, getting really busy. Like they pushed me through it and that helped a lot as well. Yeah, I think, this process of working with others, working in teams is a really important experience for the way the real world operates. Right. So, I'm glad to see all of you, sharing your experience with others.
00:45:03:07 - 00:45:05:05
Speaker 4
And the only.
00:45:05:06 - 00:45:05:14
Speaker 5
00:45:05:14 - 00:45:07:00
Speaker 4
Yeah. No, no.
00:45:07:02 - 00:45:40:12
Speaker 5
Yeah. Ananya. Yeah. Yeah. So one that helped me a lot with my project was one of my teachers at Hamilton High School. Her name is this is Nipah. She, no longer teaches at Hamilton Vaccines with CDC, but she was, like, really instrumental into encouraging me. And then, like, helping me, like, apply for, like, easy stuff and, like, looking over my slides, giving me some directions when maybe I should present my project and being there to, like, hear about my project, hear me rant about it, and then, you know, actually like, be interested in it and then give me feedback on it.
00:45:40:12 - 00:46:08:07
Speaker 5
And so she was kind of really foundational to me then like starting like the research journey in like doing or like being, having the courage to do my research. And so, my sniper's like one of, like, the greatest teachers that, has really helped me with this research project. And also just like, actually, my parents were also really instrumental to the emotional and moral support because without them, I've had so many days where I'm just like, my code is not working.
00:46:08:08 - 00:46:17:15
Speaker 5
My projects like I don't know what to do. And they're like, it's okay, just try again. And I, you know, keep going and then it ends up working. So also shout out to my parents.
00:46:18:00 - 00:46:23:08
Speaker 4
Very cool. I'd also like to shout out Miss Nipah as well. Yeah.
00:46:23:09 - 00:46:28:10
Speaker 3
Yeah. I was Sri. And what did your parents think about all the fruit? Fruit flies? Was that.
00:46:28:12 - 00:46:30:08
Speaker 4
00:46:30:10 - 00:46:55:05
Speaker 5
They were not pleased for sure, because, fruit flies kind of stink. Yeah. So I had taken over my mom's office because. Yeah, wanted to be within, like, a ten foot radius of that. So she was not happy about having his space taken. But it's okay. We got some pets out of it, I think. I think we were quite pleased.
00:46:55:06 - 00:47:09:02
Speaker 5
Yeah, I remember seeing the pictures of all the flies. Yeah. Was really funny. Yeah, that's really cool. The bookshelf said. That's what I was talking about. Oh.
00:47:09:03 - 00:47:19:07
Speaker 4
I remember very cool about a project that involved bats, and, the student kept the bats in the attic for.
00:47:19:09 - 00:47:26:02
Speaker 5
I have broken some. I don't know how their paperwork got approved, because there's no way.
00:47:26:03 - 00:47:27:12
Speaker 4
Yeah, that's pretty cool.
00:47:27:13 - 00:47:53:11
Speaker 3
It's pretty cool. Well, so you guys are now are you? Will be after the ceremony considered award winning, high school researchers. And there's other people that want to do that, right. There's other kids that are probably looking at you and looking up to you to see how to do that. So what advice would you give other students who are interested in not just pursuing a Stem career, but specifically they want to do a Stem project in high school?
00:47:53:11 - 00:48:00:09
Speaker 3
What's what's the what's what's the advice you can give them? And I'm going to actually start the middle this time. Was Sia.
00:48:00:11 - 00:48:02:01
Speaker 1
00:48:02:02 - 00:48:24:00
Speaker 5
I think this may sound counterintuitive, but it's not. Think about the award at all. Any award that my project has garnered has been purely like a surprise. Honestly, it's much harder to run a project if you're not truly passionate about it. And I think the biggest part about high school research is that it's supposed to be fun.
00:48:24:00 - 00:48:56:03
Speaker 5
Like, this is you're you're given this opportunity to do this. And of course, there's like stressful nights and your data is not going to come out great, like majority of the time. But overall it should be a fun, enjoyable process. You should enjoy what you're reading. What you're experimenting on should make you happy or curious or inquisitive. And if you ever find yourself feeling like you're forcing yourself to do a project for some like external reason, then you might want to rethink, why you're doing the project or the project that you're doing.
00:48:56:04 - 00:49:16:13
Speaker 5
And then I also think the biggest advice is like, definitely rely on your support systems. And that includes, like your own gut and your own intuition. The way to like, win a science fair is to connect on a human level and be very real. That what you accomplished as a high schooler. Because to do any research in high school is such a big deal.
00:49:16:15 - 00:49:32:14
Speaker 5
And so sell yourself is who you are. You are a high school student. You don't have to act like a PhD professor just because you don't have a Nobel to your name doesn't mean your research is invalid. So I think just have a lot of like trust and confidence in yourself and enjoy the process.
00:49:32:15 - 00:49:37:07
Speaker 3
So that's great advice. Elias, what about you? What's your advice?
00:49:37:08 - 00:49:40:06
Speaker 1
Yeah. So I guess yeah, I already covered a lot of stuff.
00:49:40:06 - 00:49:41:10
Speaker 3
Yeah. That was that was good.
00:49:41:11 - 00:49:42:12
Speaker 4
Sorry about that. I have to.
00:49:42:12 - 00:49:43:11
Speaker 3
Write that one down and put it.
00:49:43:11 - 00:50:00:07
Speaker 1
On a part of. No you can't. Yeah. So I guess to add on some things, some other things as well. I think, the first thing is to be ambitious, you know, as a high school student, I think sometimes we get trapped in our own box of thinking we're not able to do certain things or we're not capable enough to get there.
00:50:00:07 - 00:50:28:10
Speaker 1
And while some things that may not be feasible within the time we have, I think having that dream and just being willing to take the steps to get there will lead to a lot of great things, and especially for personal development and just skill development. And I think you'll end up surprising yourself with what you can do. And then the second thing is to embrace uncertainty, because I feel like a lot of research, I've heard it compared to like being walking through a blind maze and you don't know where you'll end up.
00:50:28:10 - 00:50:48:06
Speaker 1
But I think that's kind of that's part of the fun of the process. And every time you have a failure, the way I see it is to reframe it as a redirection. So I think that's something students I would give advice for students is to not be afraid of that, the, the possible failures and just being willing to take it head on.
00:50:48:07 - 00:50:49:14
Speaker 4
Cool, cool.
00:50:50:00 - 00:50:52:06
Speaker 3
Actually, what about yourself? What's your advice?
00:50:52:07 - 00:51:12:09
Speaker 4
I think for like, my biggest advice is like, at least covered it right at the end. Like, don't be afraid of failure. Like, don't like not email a professor because, like, you're going to think they're not going to respond to or like, don't like try to not pursue this opportunity because like, you have something in your head like it's going to go wrong.
00:51:12:12 - 00:51:35:06
Speaker 4
It's like just like you you don't really especially in the high school level, like with research, you don't really have anything to lose. So you should just keep experimenting and never be afraid of failure. And like, if anything happens, like it's just it's always going to you're going to learn from it and you can keep on going. So like, don't like, try to predict the future if that makes sense.
00:51:35:06 - 00:52:03:13
Speaker 4
Like that or something like that. Don't like be negative about it instead. Like take it as every step, as an opportunity. Keep progressing. And especially with the research, like you're going to have failures, you're going to have like step backs, you're going to have roadblocks, and you're just going to have to keep progressing. And like if you're afraid of failure, then like it's really hard to continue to progress and learn from what you've done in the past and the mistakes you've made in the past because like, it's inevitable to make mistakes.
00:52:03:13 - 00:52:13:07
Speaker 4
So like just keep going and like, don't really care about, like, the negatives of it and like always look forward.
00:52:13:08 - 00:52:17:01
Speaker 3
Really good advice. Shari what would you add to that.
00:52:17:03 - 00:52:37:14
Speaker 5
Yeah. So of course Elyse and I kind of touched on don't be afraid of failures and like failures pride is stepping stones of success. Adding on to that, I think it's always important to be able to adapt and change constantly because we are not perfect. You're not going to come up with the best idea, the first test.
00:52:37:15 - 00:52:55:12
Speaker 5
You're going to have to think about it. Maybe something does it work? You can't be afraid to. Oh, let me try this. Let me tweak that so you always need to keep on adapting. Keep changing according to the situation. I think that's a really good quality of not only a researcher, but also, a person.
00:52:55:14 - 00:53:01:03
Speaker 3
Yeah, yeah, it's all does apply both places. Yeah. Kadesh. What about yourself?
00:53:01:04 - 00:53:21:04
Speaker 1
Yeah, I agree with everyone. With everything everyone else said. And I also want to add on one more thing, and it might sound a little bit unconventional and controversial, maybe even. But the use of AI and AI tools is actually incredibly important. And in this day and age, research is getting there's no more barriers, I guess.
00:53:21:04 - 00:53:46:09
Speaker 1
Right? There's so some. But the use of AI can really, like limit those and break them down. And to get into research and start, oh, it's getting easier than ever with the use of these tools. And just for like a quick literature review or literature search and to understand more about the topic, I could very useful for that and gave me useful, to understand the topic and wrap my head around it and explain it to me in simple terms.
00:53:46:10 - 00:54:01:08
Speaker 1
Especially if it's a topic that there's not much about or it's something new that came up. Then, yeah, something that like, I could really do it. And obviously fact check your information on what I like. It's obviously not going to be right every single time. And it himself. Yeah.
00:54:01:09 - 00:54:06:02
Speaker 3
But that's how I think really good of good advice I think I've done yeah. I haven't called on you yet on this one. Right. Yeah.
00:54:06:06 - 00:54:23:04
Speaker 5
Yeah, yeah. So I think, my biggest piece of advice would just be to dream big because, if you're truly passionate about what you're doing and this is your idea that you really want to see happen, then no matter how many failures you're going to encounter, or no matter how many sleepless nights, it's all going to be worth it.
00:54:23:04 - 00:54:54:02
Speaker 5
Because this was your idea and it's what you want to do. And so I think that, like obviously, everyone has been talking about like failures and like not thinking about the award at the end. And I think that as long as you have that vision and idea in your head of what you want to see, and that in itself is the reward and it won't matter how many failures you encounter, because whatever, when you finish your goal or when you finish your research project that, like knowing that you've made, a project that has some tangible impact and is able to do what you wanted it to do is the biggest reward and the
00:54:54:02 - 00:54:57:08
Speaker 5
biggest like award that you could ever get.
00:54:57:10 - 00:54:59:10
Speaker 4
Eric, I have one more question, please.
00:54:59:10 - 00:55:01:03
Speaker 3
Yeah, I would say one more. Steve. Yeah.
00:55:01:04 - 00:55:15:11
Speaker 4
And then a comment. So, Amber, you've been doing this for a while and you're our teacher of the year. What's your number one piece of advice for students who are participating in science fairs?
00:55:15:12 - 00:55:30:04
Speaker 1
Well, when it comes to any kind of opportunity, the one thing I say, go for it, try for it, apply for it. Put yourself out there. If something comes your way and you hear about an internship or a shadowing or whatnot, go do it even. Especially if you're like, well, I don't know if I want to do this thing.
00:55:30:04 - 00:55:44:12
Speaker 1
It's a good chance to give it a try. And then if you see it in action, you may be like, well, this isn't really my jam or oh my gosh, this is amazing. This is exactly what I want to do. So that's definitely where I would go is, if anything, that's that's the philosophy I take as an educator.
00:55:44:12 - 00:55:53:07
Speaker 1
And I've attended dozens of hours of professional development and all sorts of things because it comes my way and I'm like, sure, let's check it out.
00:55:53:08 - 00:56:20:13
Speaker 4
So all of you have participated in the Arizona Science and Engineering Fair successfully. How many of you participated in ISF? The International Science and Engineering Fair? 123, three of you. Okay, so I wanted our audience to know that the international Science and Engineering fairs coming to Phoenix next year, it's going to be here, May 9th through 15.
00:56:20:14 - 00:56:37:04
Speaker 4
I'm on the planning committee for the event. It's been here before, four times. But I'm really excited about it. And I hope to see every one of you participate in ISF when it's here and and Phoenix. And with that I'm going to turn it back to you.
00:56:37:06 - 00:56:54:06
Speaker 3
Yeah. Great. Well we like we said we can keep going on and on and we just kind of scratched the surface here. But I think there's some really good nuggets. And hopefully teachers and parents and other students will get something out of this and inspire them to dig in and, and learn some more stuff. So we really appreciate your time.
00:56:54:06 - 00:57:13:01
Speaker 3
Congratulations to everybody. Good luck. For those of you who are seniors. And while those of you who are sophomores and juniors to you'll be there before you know it, but, and thanks I you know, it's cliche, but I'll say it. You know, if you ever worry about what's going to happen in the future, listen to this sort of thing, and you realize that there's there's a lot of potential out there.
00:57:13:01 - 00:57:32:00
Speaker 3
There's a lot of people who care. And, there's a lot of smart people. So, thanks for thanks for, making me feel good about the future. So we'll go ahead and close out here. Today's Aztec cast was brought to you by PDT. PDT is the southwest leading provider of engineering products and services to companies that design or manufacture physical products.
00:57:32:02 - 00:57:53:04
Speaker 3
Our team of 85 engineers, sales professionals, administrators and technicians is proud to be an elite Ansys channel partner. Now part of synopsis and PTT is also a channel partner with Stratasys and EOS for 3D printing and flown ECS for system level thermal simulation. Our engineers also provide product design simulation in 3D printing as a service, so over 30 went for over 31 years.
00:57:53:04 - 00:58:15:05
Speaker 3
Now at PDT we make innovation work, and if any of our listeners are interested in being a podcast participant or a sponsor for the Council's Aztec cast, contact Marketing at Aztec council.org to learn more about the opportunities to future, to further position you as a tech expert, influencer and innovator. So until next time, thanks for joining me, Steve.
00:58:15:05 - 00:58:27:07
Speaker 3
And I'm Eric Miller and thanks everybody out there for joining us for the AC tech cast.
00:58:27:08 - 00:58:44:13
Speaker 2
Thank you for joining us for this episode of The Aztec Cast. With the Arizona Technology Council featuring leading tech and business experts who help influence and shape our great state and the industries they serve.
00:58:44:15 - 00:58:45:08
Speaker 2
See.
