Plymouth-Canton Student With Passion For Robotics Wins Scholarship

PLYMOUTH-CANTON, MI — A Plymouth-Canton eighth-grader won a $5,000 scholarship by detailing his love of robotics and aspirations for an engineering career through an essay contest.

Sayan Shah from Plymouth Scholars Charter Academy was one of four scholars selected from hundreds of applicants from more than 90 National Heritage Academies (NHA) partner schools.

Each applicant wrote an essay on one of three topics:

• Applying their morals in service to others through community service
• Situations in which Moral Focus virtues guided their decision-making process
• How science, technology, engineering or math (STEM) influenced their decision to pursue a career in those fields.

Sayan has a love for robotics and hopes to pursue a career in engineering. He has actively been involved in the robotics programs since second grade. He also recently worked on robots that completed the following functions: filtering sweat from astronauts to turn into drinkable water, testing plant soil levels and then watering them to the proper moisture content, and robots that competed in three-on-three matches.

"I am thrilled to congratulate this year’s class of CollegeBound Scholarship winners," National Heritage Academies President and CEO Brian Britton said. "I’m inspired hearing these scholars’ stories of perseverance and courage. Seeing our educators encourage these tremendous young minds is what we strive to achieve each and every day through our mission to transform lives."