Will the third time be a charm for Collingwood Collegiate Institute student Sia Mehta?
She’s excited to find out.
Grade 9 student Mehta won a gold medal in the computer science and engineering category at the Simcoe County Regional Science and Technology Fair in April, and she, along with seven other students from across Simcoe County, will be heading to the national science competition from May 25 to June 1.
It will mark the third time she’s made it to the national level in her school career so far.
“I just want to help people. That’s my main goal with this project,” Mehta told CollingwoodToday this week.
Mehta was also given the Quinn Rehab Health Sciences Award, which is handed out to a project that improves the life of older Canadians. She was inspired to build her project after her aunt was in an accident a few months ago and severely injured her hip.
“I wanted to do something to help,” said Mehta.
Looking to the market, Mehta found that traditional hip protectors are bulky and uncomfortable to wear. Mehta’s design uses foam which is vacuum sealed in a pouch that is attached to the hip. Using a controller and electromagnets, an accelerometer gyroscope sensor detects movement. If it senses a fall, the electromagnets release air into the foam pocket to inflate it and protect the area from fall damage.
The project includes Mehta’s testing of different materials to determine which would work best to protect from fall damage, while also being comfortable to wear.
“I haven’t finished a prototype yet. I don’t have data from falls, so I’m trying to figure out when the system should deploy,” Mehta explained.
No stranger to the science fair scene, Mehta has competed at the national level twice before. When she was in the sixth grade at Pretty River Academy, she took home a national silver medal for her Smart Sorter project, which used a colour sensor to detect recyclable bottles and cans.
In the seventh grade, her Thermochromic Economics project saw Mehta engineer a colour-changing roof paint that withstands weather and saves energy, and earned her a bronze medal at nationals that year.
In her third time competing at the national level, this time Mehta is going for gold.
“I’m nervous,” she said with a laugh.
When asked what drives her interest in the sciences, Mehta said helping people and the environment is at the top of her reasons. She said she’d like to help solve the climate change problem facing the world.
“I just keep going,” she said. “I definitely want to continue working in STEM (science, technology, engineering and math). I really like math or environmental science of some sort.”
