Obama Makes 'Special Plea' To Press: Pay Attention To White House Science Fair Winners (PHOTOS)

WASHINGTON -- President Barack Obama made a "special plea" to the press on Tuesday to give coverage to the winners of the White House Science Fair.

"Pay attention to this. This is important," Obama said during remarks in the East Room, where this year's teenage winners sat all around him. "This doesn't just belong on the back pages of a newspaper. We've got to lift this up and emphasize how important this is and recognize these incredible young people. This is what inspires me and gets me up every day."

Because we don't want to be accused of ignoring the people who could be running the country in the next 30 years, here's a breakdown of the students and their winning projects, which included breakthrough research (dissolvable sugar packets) and new inventions (a portable disaster relief shelter). Obama walked around the White House viewing each of the projects on display and even interacted with one of them, launching a marshmallow out of a compressed air cannon that smashed against the wall in the State Dining Room.

From a White House pool report:

Detroit Students Imagining the Energy Efficient City of the Future. The Paul Robeson/Malcolm X Academy student team from Detroit, Michigan, competed in the Michigan Regional Contest of the National Engineers Week Future City Competition for the second year in a row. Lucas Cain Beal, Jayla Mae Dogan, and Ashley Cassie Thomas, all aged 13, were part of a team that won the Excellence in Engineering Award at the 2012 Michigan Regional Competition focused on designing a city around the theme of "Fuel Your Future: Imagine New Ways to Meet Our Energy Needs and Maintain a Healthy Planet." After being named Best Rookie Team in 2011, the students had to overcome losing their school to a fire. Despite the adversity and having to merge with another school, the students were energized to take on the Future City challenge again, saying "(Future City) helps me make a better city to live in."

Building an Award-Winning Robot and Learning Entrepreneurial Lessons. Morgan Ard, Titus Walker, and Robert Knight, III, 8th grade students at Monroeville Jr. High School in Monroeville, Alabama won high honors at the South BEST robotics competition. BEST teams mimic industry by designing and developing a product and delivering it to market, including a marketing presentation, engineering notebook, trade-show style exhibit booth and robot competition. Through the experience, these middle school students not only learned the innovation and engineering necessary to develop an award-winning robot, but the marketing and business skills that spark true entrepreneurial spirit.

Student "Making" and Starting Small Business to Sell his Invention. Fourteen year old Joey Hudy from Phoenix, Arizona is already a Maker Faire veteran. He invented an Extreme Marshmallow Cannon and an LED Cube Microcontroller Shield, which he has exhibited at Maker Faires in New York, San Francisco, and Detroit. He received 2 Editors Choice Awards from Maker Faire, and has started a small business selling the microcontroller (Arduino) shield kits on several websites. As the World's Largest Do-It-Yourself Festival, Maker Faire is the premier event for grassroots American innovation.

Student Designing a Robot to Connect Senior Citizens with their Families. Concerned with the loneliness of seniors at his grandmother's senior living center, fourteen-year old Salesianum High School (Wilmington, DE) student Benjamin Hylak of West Grove, Pennsylvania, built an interactive robot, which qualified him as a BROADCOM Masters 2011 Finalist. His telepresence robot which moves around the center and allows seniors to connect via Skype with their family and friends when they are unable to visit in person, earned him second place in the BROADCOM Masters Engineering Category.

Developing a Portable Disaster Relief Shelter. Jessica D'Esposito, Colton Newton and Anna Woolery from Petersburg, Indiana are representing the Pike Central High School InvenTeam, one of fifteen schools selected nationwide. They won a grant from the Lemelson-MIT Program to develop a lightweight, portable disaster relief shelter, designed to be complete with a water purification system and a renewable energy source to power an LED light, which could be used after disasters such as hurricanes, earthquakes, floods, or tornadoes to house people who have been displaced.

Young Women Rocketing to Nationals. Janet Nieto and Ana Karen of Presidio, Texas were members of the Presidio High School Rocketry Team that competed as a National Finalist in the Team America Rocketry Challenge (TARC) in 2009, 2010, and 2011. Gwynelle Condino, a 7th grade student at Lucy Franco Middle School, also of Presidio, Texas, is the leader of her TARC team this year. All three girls have successfully competed in a number of rocketry challenges and have attended the NASA Student Launch Initiative Advanced Rocketry program.

Team of Girl Scouts Seeking Patent on Prosthetic Hand Device Which Enables a Young Girl to Write. A group of middle school-aged Girl Scouts from Ames, Iowa, including Gaby Dempsey, Mackenzie Gewell, and Kate Murray developed a patent-pending prosthetic hand device, winning them the inaugural Global Innovation Award at the FIRST LEGO League competition, beating out nearly 200 other submissions. Their invention was in response to the need of a little old girl in Duluth, Georgia, enabling her to write for the first time although she was born without fingers on her right hand. Their patent pending BOB-1 has earned the girls the Heartland Red Cross Young Heroes Award, scholarships at Iowa State University College of Engineering, recognition on the Floor of the Iowa and the US House of Representatives, and the title of finalists for the 2011 Pioneer Hi-Bred Iowa Women of Innovation Awards.

Teenage CEO Inventing Dissolvable Sugar Packets to Reduce Waste. Hayley Hoverter, a 16-year-old student from Downtown Business Magnet High School in Los Angeles, California, won first place at the 2011 Network For Teaching Entrepreneurship's National Challenge for her idea for patent-pending ecologically conscious dissolvable sugar packets. Hayley, now CEO of Sweet (dis)SOLVE, started her business as a part of the Network for Teaching Entrepreneurship's (NFTE's) business plan competition.

PHOTOS:

Comments

[hottingers]

08:45 PM on 02/08/2012

Do they have a No-Science contest for religious school and home-school students? Like a project called "Gravity? Not!" where a student tries to show that objects go up.

[roudy]

06:23 PM on 02/08/2012

Just got back from the regional science fair for Junior High. what a diversity of subjects and what hard work these kids did on their projects. Anyone that thinks these kids aren't getting a great education is just not paying attention.

[gditty]

06:22 PM on 02/08/2012

It's high time these little inventors get out their heads out of those books and into the school toilets....

I'm Newt Gingrich and I approve this message.

[Adonijah]

01:34 PM on 02/08/2012

Congrats to these young visionaries!

Bravo to the Prez for hosting this wonderful event/opportunity.

[ohohyeah]

01:34 PM on 02/08/2012

Obama 2012

Grat of him to feature these wonderful young people!

[Adonijah]

01:41 PM on 02/08/2012

Hear, hear!

[ConservativebyNature]

01:28 PM on 02/08/2012

If they pay attention to the science fair winners, maybe they'll forget to pay attention to him and his failed presidency.

[Paski]

04:26 PM on 02/08/2012

Failed presidency? Can you elaborate with evidence? Take the situation at the end of 2008 (financial meltdown, losing 850,000 jobs a month) to now. And then compare and contrast.

[ConservativebyNature]

05:36 PM on 02/08/2012

Yes, I said failed. The trampling of the constitution through Obama Care, the NDAA signing with it's unconstitutional arrest and indefinate confinement provisions. Extremely slow recovery being much much slower than it should have been. Gitmo still open. unemployment rate too high at above 8% using doctored numbers, but closer to 19% when counting all unemployed. Spending still too high. Gasoline twice the price from when he took office w/o any end in sight. Too much dependence on MidEast oil w/o any relief since the stoppage of the Canadian pipeline. And the list goes on.

[Tomaniac]

06:13 PM on 02/08/2012

Are you one of those conservatives highlighted in recent studies that is unable to grasp reality or facts and declares that Obama is the boogie man because of your fear of "others" and your evolutionary created inability to do anything about it? What else could explain your remark about his "failed presidency" and then your reply to Paski. The president that failed this country was GW Bush. Let me guess, you voted for GWB twice.

By the way, what is the scourge of Communism, another boogie man hiding under your bed? Hopefully science will create a pill you can take to get over your fear.

[ConservativebyNature]

06:23 PM on 02/08/2012

Question 1: No

Question 2: No

[Nancy Q]

03:00 PM on 02/10/2012

He wants to "spread the wealth." Since when has that ever worked in any country of this world??? When all are "broke", then what???

[J Smith 01]

10:49 AM on 02/08/2012

But pretty soon our innovation-minded kids will have to face the real world - how to find a job that pays and be the bread winner of the family. No wonder they will choose Wall Street.

[alumnus]

08:40 AM on 02/08/2012

American universities are creating a myth that American students cannot compete with Chinese students for positions in graduate engineering programs in the US. In 2010, 57% of the PhDs awarded in engineering went to foreign students. That might be good in the short term for the professor who got his research project done but it does great harm to our economy and national security. US taxpayer funded grants should not pay for foreign graduate students. We should be encouraging American univesities to train American engineers. Read more at www.china-threat.com

[Mamadukes]

06:46 AM on 02/08/2012

So, where is the reality show about these kids? Or about the scientists trying to find a cure for cancer? Or about environmentalists risking their lives trying to save endangered species? Or about archeologists unearthing some of the wonders of our world's history? Aren't these situations "real" enough for reality TV? Are hoarders and Kardashians the best we have to offer as a society?

[Transverseangle]

10:48 AM on 02/08/2012

Actually I think you hit onto a great idea, young innovative kids, maybe a reality show of lets say 12 episodes a year, would be great. It was interesting what they had to offer, I particularly like the disaster relief concept.

[frieda406]

12:23 PM on 02/08/2012

well, watching an episode of hoarders immediately motivated me to run through the house like a banshee, heaving things out into garbage, recycle and yard sale. i now feel much better. thank you, hoarders. that said, your reality show idea is brilliant.

[Adonijah]

01:39 PM on 02/08/2012

LOL! Good for you. Stuff can pile up so quickly. I am alwayz trying to "purge." Problem is my hubby is a pack-rat. So most of what gets purged is my things....whilst his things are steadily piling up...

[HarryP]

04:05 AM on 02/08/2012

Jennifer, this is your headline "Obama Makes 'Special Plea' To Press: Pay Attention To White House"

and this article is put on the bottom of the page, why not on the top ?

but we do have a cool prez!
and forward we go to 2016

[scandaliciousreserve]

01:48 AM on 02/08/2012

FANTASTIC. It is about time!!!

[Kevin Rayburn]

01:47 AM on 02/08/2012

that marshmellow cannon is pretty cool, but i am kind of suprised some school administrator didnt try and expel that kid for building a firearm even if it does only shoot marshmellows.

[frieda406]

12:24 PM on 02/08/2012

he lives here, in arizona. school administrator was probably disappointed he didn't shoot them out of a shotgun cannon.

[ConservativebyNature]

01:32 PM on 02/08/2012

The kid wanted to make a flamethrower marshmallow cannon at first that would shoot toasted marshmallows, but school administrators stepped in and put a stop to it after the first test set off the school's sprinkler system.

[murphthesurf3]

12:48 AM on 02/08/2012

Can you imagine Romney or Gingrich engaging these young people. Stiff or Demeaning. Your choices. Romney would have to have every line fed to him and Gingrich would declare the results invalid since he is obvioiusly the smartest person in the room.

[scandaliciousreserve]

01:52 AM on 02/08/2012

Since you "opened the door", I noticed the invitation for Obama to speak to the graduating class at a high-tech school - for computer technology, was RESCINDED when Obama placed his long-form birth certificate on a US Government website.

*
btw, No such thing as an "independent" progressive.

[Nonpartay]

02:36 AM on 02/08/2012

Link, please. I can't find a thing about this.

[murphthesurf3]

07:48 AM on 02/08/2012

Your first statement re. the invitation to speak...here's the story...http://www.sandiegoreader.com/news/2011/may/11/sdqt-schooled/

and here's the problem, It is a parody, a satire from a section of the paper entitled "The Almost Fctual News" by a writer with the pen name of Walter Mencken (apparently in the style of Art Buchwald. See the fuller section: http://www.sandiegoreader.com/weblogs/almost-factual-news/2011/may/

I am a progressive, but not a "liberal". I am strongly pro-life, conception to death which means I believe in preventing pregnancy but not aborting it; believe in a strong, but effective military (which does not wage total war when surgical action is required) 

One of my positions is that illegal aliens/undocumented workers are a BIG problem for many reasons.

So I support:
A) No access to social support services (except emergency medical assistance) for any undocumented person.
B) No access to work without documentation.
C) Revoking the 14th Amendments birthright citizenship (which was passed to ensure the children of emancipated slaves were unquestionably citizens).
D) A pathway to citizenship for all of those who meet certain preconditions

I stand with Teddy Roosevelt, Ike, Nixon, and George HW Bush. I also stand with FDR, Clinton and Obama. 

[Nonpartay]

02:33 AM on 02/08/2012

Gingrich would have asked them how come they're not working as janitors.

[murphthesurf3]

07:12 AM on 02/08/2012

Having invalidated the results that's the followup line.

[Bogg Down]

09:14 AM on 02/08/2012

And Romney would be urging them to invent another roof carrier for his dog.

[falconsso]

12:25 AM on 02/08/2012

He will need all of those marshmellows as packing material as he moves from 1600 Penn Ave.

[jb go niners]

12:36 AM on 02/08/2012

You'll need plenty of Brawny paper towels for all the crying you'll be doing for the next five years.

[LeftFoLyfe]

01:15 AM on 02/08/2012

Your mind is filled with marshmallows.

[What the Hell]

12:22 AM on 02/08/2012

Way go kids. Way to go President Obama.