缅北禁地

For the sixth year, The Lemelson Foundation is giving $100 awards to outstanding young inventors in Society Affiliate Fairs with middle school participants around the country. The prize was created to reward young inventors whose projects exemplify the ideals of inventive thinking by identifying challenges in their communities and creating solutions that will improve lives.

Lilly Downs鈥� fascination with renewable energy began on a road trip, where she saw wind turbines scattered across open fields, spinning gracefully in the breeze. With this image in mind and a strong interest in engineering, Lilly decided to incorporate an environmental piece into her eighth grade science fair project. Inspired by sustainable energy solutions, Lilly designed and built a prototype for an ocean wave electricity generator.

Her project addresses the world鈥檚 dependence on fossil fuels, a concern Lilly became aware of after learning that approximately 75 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions come from fossil fuel use. This realization reinforced her belief in the importance of investing in renewable energy research and a path to a cleaner and more sustainable future.

To generate power for an LED light, Lilly鈥檚 ocean wave electricity generator consists of a buoy with attached magnets and a spool of copper wire. The wave moves the buoy up and down which makes the magnets move through the spool inducing an electrical current. This current travels through the wires to a bridge rectifier to stabilize the voltage, ultimately powering an LED light.

One of Lilly鈥檚 favorite aspects of her project was designing the base tubes for her device, which required trial and error. Using 3D printing design software, Tinker Cad, she created multiple iterations, printing and testing each shape. While it was challenging, Lilly says that refining the design was the only major obstacle she encountered.

鈥淚 wanted to design a device that could generate a high volume of electricity while also having a realistic and optimal design,鈥� Lilly explained. 鈥淚nitially I was going to make it rectangular in shape instead of a tube so the magnets could alternate polls, like I found when doing my research.鈥�

Lilly found inefficient results with having the rectangle-shaped tube as the magnets were being pulled by a buoy as they were too tall. She fixed this problem by stacking the magnets so their polls would be facing the same way, and the tube would be a cylinder shape rather than a聽rectangle.

The most surprising discovery in Lilly鈥檚 research was that increasing the number of magnets from 10 to 14 did not change the voltage output. She had expected a higher output but found that the results remained the same. To achieve a higher voltage, Lilly would have to expand her project. This is a possibility as Lilly wants to continue researching renewable energy and climate change.

鈥淚 think it’s something people should look at and be knowledgeable about,鈥� Lilly said. 鈥淢any scientists are trying to find solutions to this problem, and I feel like my job as a young innovator is to find creative solutions.鈥�

Lilly鈥檚 dedication to researching renewable energy has led to being awarded with the Lemelson Early Inventor Prize, not once, but twice. She says being recognized again means a great deal to her. By getting this award, Lilly says she feels her efforts are meaningful to others and pushes her to make the world a better place.