Madison Students Eyeing a National Championship

The NSTA/Toshiba Exploravision Awards has selected a fourth grade team from Island Avenue School to represent Region 1, which consists of all of New England plus New York in the national competition.

The team is comprised of Angelina Vargas-Esteves, Nina Brauer, and Julia Dougherty. The Exploravision Awards challenges teams to look at a piece of technology that exists today and envision what it might be like in twenty years.

The girls’ hope is to restore sight to the visually impaired through contact lenses, created with nanotechnology, that connect directly to the optic nerve, said Thomas Scarice, who is Madison’s superintendent of schools. They are one of six teams in the country left vying for the national championship.

“It is a tremendous honor for our class to have a team that was selected as the regional winner,” said teacher Michael Ginsburg. “The girls were equally grateful and excited to have been selected.

“They are now one of six teams competing for the national championship. To compete in this phase of the competition the girls made a prototype of their technology, a video explaining how their technology would work, and a website that explains all aspects of their project. They will find out in early May if they have been selected as one of the top two teams nationally,” Ginsbury added.

Additionally, for all of the projects that were not selected as regional winners, the top ten percent of projects submitted, K-12, are selected to receive honorable mention awards.

“We are also very fortunate to have two teams that were chosen for this honor,” Ginsburg said.

The Agua del Sol group, which consists of Lily Keller, Lily Flaherty, and Ryder Salvador envision a machine that could help bring clean water to the people of Africa.

The Agua del Sol uses biomimicry to create a special netting that is based on the Namib desert beetle.

The other winning group is the Thinking Cap. This team is comprised of four boys, Kiran Pathy, Jack Simpson, Chris DeFonzo, and Chris Bruchell. They envision a sports cap that can read brainwaves to help improve communication for paraplegics.

Photos: Angelina Vargas-Esteves working on the prototype. The others are of the ceremony. In the photo of the region winning team, pictured from left to right are: Greg Franzone, Toshiba, Julia Dougherty, Nina Brauer, Angelina Vargas-Esteves, and Michael Ginsburg.