We received 7 projects for the 2018 to 2019 Butwin Elias Science and Technology Award! We awarded $4,150 for this years award. The winners of this years award are below:
First Place ($3,000): Arachnoid
The first place winners for the 2017-2018 BEST award were Chase Leach and Tio Morello with their 3D quadruped robot Arachnoid. This is the third time that Chase has won the BEST award and Tio submitted a project that would have won second on its own but he was only eligible to win first place. His other project Mountain Survival can be found here. The instructable that details their winning project can be found here.
Second Place ($500): SaQai: Extremely Affordable Phone
Samuel Conklin and Adil Qaiser won second place with their 3D printed Extremely Affordable Phone. The instructable that they wrote to document their project can be found here.
Third Place ($500): Making a Bluetooth Adapter
Will Block and Sawyer Kortez won third place with their instructable that documented making a bluetooth adapter and speaker to play music from a bluetooth source. The instructable they wrote can be found here.
Fourth Place ($200): PVC Bow
Michael Grebeck and Dylan Romero won fourth place with their instructable that documented their build of a PVC bow. The instructable they wrote can be found here.
Fifth Place ($125): Aquaponics System
Saul Woodworth and Joe Day won fifth place with their instructable that documented their build of an aquaponics system. The instructable they wrote can be found here.
Participation Award ($50): Solar Car
Milea Osmanski and Twittany Van won a participation award for their solar car instructable found here.
Speech Given at the Awards Ceremony:
Adam Iseman spoke during the Major Awards ceremony at E. L. Meyers High to present the BEST award. His speech was about how science and technology are fundamental to everyday life and specifically how fundamental they are to healtcare. The transcript of his speech is below:
Hello I’m Adam Iseman. I graduated from Meyers in 2007 and I’m here today to present the 2018-2019 Butwin Elias Science and Technology Award. This is the seventh year that we are awarding this scholarship. Me and my older brother Luke, who is here today with a Mohawk, started this scholarship for two main reasons. We mainly wanted to encourage students interested in Science and Technology to pursue their passions and get more involved with the hands-on aspects of science and technology. Secondly, we wanted to honor some of the awesome teachers that we had while here at Meyers. This award is named after two of the all-time greatest teachers either of us have ever had, Mr. George Butwin and Mr. Sam Elias. Mr. Butwin retired when I was in 10th grade but Mr. Elias is here today in addition to multiple other of the amazing teachers we’ve had are in the audience today so let’s take a second to give the awesome teachers here at Meyers a round of Applause!
So, for the past seven years to win the BEST award students have to complete, document and submit a science and technology related project to be evaluated by our panel of judges. I put in a lot of work to give out this award because I truly believe that Science and Technology is fundamental to our daily lives and we need to encourage the next generation of scientists, technical professionals, engineers and doctors to get hands on scientific experience.
I’ve recently and quite painfully been reminded about how fundamental to our lives modern science and technology are. This past October my dad, David Iseman, was diagnosed with Leukemia. Leukemia is a type of blood cancer that causes your white blood cells to reproduce too rapidly and without treatment can be fatal in as little as a few weeks. This diagnosis was unexpected and quite devastating to our family. Luckily for my Dad modern medicine has made huge strides in the treatment of this disease. He is still currently fighting leukemia but he is not fighting it alone. He is fighting with the combined knowledge of generations of skilled doctors and specialists informing his treatment.
Modern medicine at its core focuses on applying fundamental scientific and technological advances to better treat patients suffering from illnesses and diseases. Modern medicine is directly based on the fundamental scientific principles that are taught in this very building. Modern medicine is constantly evolving and the progress that it has made in recent decades is nothing short of amazing. The precision and sophistication of my Dad’s current care is light years beyond the bloodletting and leaches that used to be used to treat illnesses.
A modern care plan and a recently developed theory on how to treat an illness would be useless without the dedicated individuals to carry out this treatment plan. The people working within modern medicine today are performing things that in any other time in history would be considered magic.
My mom, Lynn Iseman who is also in the audience today, worked for years as a cardiac cath lab nurse and has on countless occasions assisted in bringing back people from the dead. Across the world everyday cardiac cath labs literally restart patients’ hearts after they have stopped beating.
Numerous alumni of Meyers are currently performing many more miracles of modern medicine on a daily basis. My sister Carla, who is presenting after me today and graduated in 2005, is an optometrist and by prescribing the right pair of glasses and through the visual perception therapy she conducts on a daily basis can change patients’ lives. Brad Elias, Mr. Elias’s nephew who I graduated with and consider one of and my best friends, is a pharmacist. His job is to give out magical potions and elixirs that cure or prevent a myriad of diseases that used to be fatal. Another of our classmates, Tony Sabulski, has gone on to become a pediatric oncologist who everyday helps children in the same fight that my Dad is going through right now.
Both of them grew up just blocks from this school off of Blackman street. I was with both of them when we learned the basics of cell biology in Mr. Moules 8th grade science class. We learned the basics of chemical reactions together in Mrs. Rebo’s chem classes and they have both gone on to become literal lifesavers. The basic scientific principles they first learned here at Meyers have set the foundation for their future medical careers and are key to all of the lives they have saved and all of the lives that they are continuously improving. This is why I’m so excited to give out this award each year and see how each of the applicants uses the basic scientific principles they learn here at Meyers and through this award as the foundation for the rest of their lives.
And so now let’s actually present the awards and see what hands on experience this year’s batch of applicants got!
Donors Who Are Totally Awesome:
The Iseman Foundation is funded by awesome people who give their hard earned money to help encourage kids to start their journeys in science and technology. Thank you so much to everyone that continues to support getting kids interested in Science and Technology!