Alice Wei Zhao
Wisconsin
Alice Wei Zhao, 16, of Sheboygan, submitted an engineering project to the Intel
Science Talent Search describing her invention of a portable device to deliver a
continuous supply of heated high-pressure gas that helps form nanoparticle
coatings and materials. Alice's challenge was to provide a gas that is both very
hot (700ºC or 1300ºF) and under high pressure (200 psi) - two requirements that
are difficult to achieve together. To heat the pressurized gas, she proposed
using an induction coil with a heating coil of mild steel. For insulation, Alice
used a tube-in-tube design with natural convection air flowing through it to
keep the heating coil hot and prevent the induction coil from melting. In lab
tests, the device worked successfully. Last year, a Taiwanese aeronautical
conference accepted a paper that she co-authored on this subject. Alice's many
awards include third place in a national inventors competition, which she earned
while in second grade. First in her class of 405 at Sheboygan North High School,
Alice enjoys piano, vocal music and tennis. The daughter of Yougui Zhao and
Chonghua Wang, Alice hopes to attend MIT or Caltech and one day become a
biomedical engineer or patent lawyer.
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