Cobb Student Wins Public Vote Award, Places 2nd In Nationwide Young Scientist Competition

MARIETTA, GA — A Marietta teen placed second overall in a nationwide middle school science competition, and won an award choosing which project had the greatest potential to make a positive impact on the world.

Samarth Mahapatra, a 14-year-old student at Dodgen Middle School, was named the first runner-up in the 14th annual 3M Young Science Challenge, the nation's premier middle school science competition.

Mahapatra also won the competition's Improving Lives award, a special recognition award based on online public voting to choose the final project from the challenge that has the greatest potential to make a positive impact on the world, according to a news release.

"For 14 years, Discovery Education and 3M have partnered to help empower young people to bring STEM learning to life," said Lori McFarling, president of social impact at Discovery Education. "Every single one of this year's participants demonstrated the power of STEM to change the world and improve lives."

Mahapatra won second overall and the public-vote award for his project titled "Accessibility Friendly Guidance System for Optimal Cooking Operations based on Machine Learning," which deployed edge computing and advance vision algorithms to help people with vision impairments cook with ease. The teen was inspired by his great aunt who had to give up cooking due to glaucoma-induced blindness, the release said.

Mahapatra applied for the challenge earlier this year and was selected as a top 10 finalist among applicants across the country. Once he was chosen as a finalist, he worked with Dr. Döne Demirgöz, a research specialist at 3M who mentored the teen all summer.

The Marietta teen won a $1,000 prize and a special destination trip for placing second overall.

In 15 years, Mahapatra said he plans to be a computational biologist/data scientist in the bio sciences field.

"I have developed a very strong passion in the area of machine learning and truly want to solve real-world problems and invent new capabilities and solutions," he said on his 3M biography page.