National science fair to attract Canada’s top young inventors Hundreds of budding scientists looking to invent the next revolutionary gadget or cure the next viral outbreak will arrive in Windsor Saturday for the 53rd annual Canada-Wide Science Fair. Among them will be Windsor’s Abhi Gupta, a 14-year-old student at Massey secondary school who hopes to walk away with a patent on the communication device he designed for Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) patients. Gupta said he got the idea from the speech difficulties his uncle suffered after a stroke left him hospitalized and dependent on a breathing tube. “I tried to create something (to help him), but unfortunately he passed away,” he said. “This is just something in memory of him, and I hope to use it for other people as well.” The device, developed under the guidance of a mentor, uses patients’ gazes to move a cursor and type on a virtual keyboard. Gupta said he’s excited to exhibit his work, but is mostly looking forward to receiving feedback from the judges. “(I) want to get advice from the judges on how I can improve my device and make it a device that can probably help the world in general,” he said. In total, Windsor will host 463 elementary school students May 10 to 17, as they compete for a batch of awards and draw inspiration from their peers’ experiments. ow.ly/wGIAM
Posted on: Sat, 10 May 2014 01:36:04 +0000