Saturday, May 10, 2008

Student wins at an international competition

Argen Duncan El Defensor Chieftain Reporter

ADUNCAN One sixth-grader goes against the world, and he walks away with third place in his category.

Cottonwood Valley Charter School student Anjik Ghosh took the bronze in the engineering category of the Junior Division at the International Sustainable World (Energy, Engineering and Environment) Project Olympiad 2008 held May 1-5 in Houston. A $200 award came with his achievement.

"I was really, really, really happy because the competition was really hard," he said of his feelings upon learning the results.

However, the sixth-grader was also a little disappointed because he thought he could have done even better.

Anjik Ghosh was selected to participate in the science fair after submitting an abstract of his project for consideration. He has competed in New Mexico regional and local science fairs with the same project, which aims to design a better cochlear-implant hearing aid and model of the inner ear.

The cochlea is a spiral-shaped structure in the inner ear essential to hearing.

At each level, Anjik Ghosh makes advances on his project. For the international competition, he changed the liquid in the tube containing the plastic membrane that represents the cochlea.

Anjik Ghosh found that salt water worked noticeably better than either fresh water or glycerin, a dense fluid. It took him a few weeks to get the materials, make calculations and find the time to do it all, he said.

Next year, Anjik Ghosh plans to keep working on the project. He also plans to submit a full report of his project in attempt to earn an invitation to enter the Society of Science and the Public National Science competition in October in Washington, D.C.

Pritha Ghosh, Anjik's mother, went to the competition with him. She said 600 middle and high school students from 58 nations and 38 states attended the fair, which is the first of its kind held in the United States.

Anjik Ghosh was the only Junior Division competitor from New Mexico.

"It was a wonderful opportunity for him to learn and explore with people from the rest of the world," Pritha Ghosh said.

The event included cultural and social events and field trips to Rice University and the Houston NASA facility. All expenses except travel to and from the competition were paid.

Anjik Ghosh commented on seeing many people from other countries all around.

"So it was pretty cool, seeing people from all over the world come to this one hotel, this one convention center, for an international competition," he said.

The judging session at the fair was 6-1/2 hours long, with a two-hour break after the first three hours. Afterward, Anjik Ghosh skimmed through the other projects and he said some were "pretty interesting."

Pritha Ghosh said the event was a good chance for both of them to see the standard of science in the rest of the world and learn what people in other countries are doing in the field.

During the field trip to Rice University, Anjik Ghosh met and got the autograph of Robert Curl, who won the Nobel Prize for chemistry in 1996.

"That was just awesome," the student said.

Pritha Ghosh said Curl was a "very simple and humble man" who taught freshman chemistry despite his notoriety.

On the tour of NASA's building, Anjik saw rockets and moon rocks, as well as learning about space history and viewing astronaut-training facilities.

"It was just really fun," he said.

aduncan@dchieftain.com

E-mail this story Printer-friendly version