The 10th Annual Arkansas STEM Fest was held Thursday at the State Fairgrounds in Little Rock.
STEM is an acronym for science, technology, engineering, and math in education. LISA Academy organizes the event each year.
Bethany Rattermann, Senior Director of Communications for LISA Academy, considers the event the ultimate showcase of the student’s talent.
"Everybody likes to do equations on paper, but it's just not as engaging as seeing a giant fireball, or doing robotic surgery, watching a robotic dog," says Ratterman. "It's kind of like a science fair on steroids because the students not only have to show you their experiment, but they also have to talk about it. They have to communicate with the judges and tell them why these things work and why these topics are so important."
Among the students presenting were Tristan Lions and Jonah Reed with LISA West, who presented their miniature singing Tesla coil.
"So a regular Tesla coil works by emitting electricity at a certain frequency, " Reed explained, "so at different frequencies, it produces different pitches."
The teens were all too happy to provide a sample of the tiny Tesla coil speaker and blasted a bit of "Never Gonna Give You Up" by Rick Astley, keeping the tradition of "Rick-rolling" alive and well.
This year’s theme was “Rise of the Machines,” exploring AI and machine learning in tech. LISA West Middle Yogi Patel and Vishak Meenachi programmed 5,000 lines of code to produce a simulated self-driving car. They even challenged judges to try a human-powered driving simulator to see who was the better driver.
“The self-driving car drives along pathways— roads here and uses a technique called ray casting. It's where you see these rays coming out of the car, detecting the end of the road, traffic lights, crosswalks, stop signs, everything you need for the real world," says Patel.
Meenachi added, "It also has three languages so that it can be diverse, and we can add more. It uses an array of AI tools such as a neural network to know where it can go and where it will go in the future.”
The pair took home a third place award for their efforts.
The students also experienced new technologies such as a simulated robotic surgery. As far as the kids were concerned, the star of the show was the Center for Toxicology and Environmental Health’s robotic dog, powered by Boston Dynamics.
Lead Roboticist Jonathan Barket says this technology can keep people out of hazardous situations.
“We went to a chemical facility recently where there was the possibility of a carbon monoxide release they were worried could hurt workers. Normally the way you do it is someone has to put on the full-body suit like they're going to meet aliens, and instead, we're able to send in one of our robots, they take the same equipment, we determine whether or not it is safe, and then we can go from there.”
Students said they believe machine learning has great potential to improve the world through advanced technology, as long as it is used in applications that promote health and safety for all people.
Illian Khan took home first prize in the Elementary Division for their project, "The Glacial Innovator."
First-place winners for the Junior Division were Haasini Motupalli and Aanya Tiwary for their submission, "Predicting Breast Cancer Bone Metastasis with Machine Learning."
For the Senior Division, student Juakeen Soriana won first place for his work on a Repetition Identification and Learning Algorithm, or RILA.
Gretchen Conger, Chief of Staff for Governor Sanders' office, and UAMS Chancellor Dr. Cam Patterson were in attendance among other welcomed guests.
