National competition: “Jugend forscht”: organic bag, ECG concept and deodorant salts

national competition
“Jugend forscht”: organic bag, EKG concept and deodorant salts

Anja Armstrong (lr), Jennifer Boronowska and Seyma Celik present their compostable disposable bags at “Jugend forscht”. photo

© Hauke-Christian Dittrich/dpa

More than 170 young researchers are presenting their projects in Bremen for several days at the final of the national “Jugend forscht” competition. The winners will be determined on Sunday.

This year’s winners of the national “Jugend forscht” competition have been selected: the best young researchers were honored on Sunday in Bremen. Among them are three young women from Rüsselsheim in Hesse, who have developed a compostable disposable bag, as the organizers announced. “You can use them more often than a paper bag,” said 18-year-old Anja Armstrong.

She and her two colleagues used a biopolymer made of glycerin, acetic acid, starch and water reinforced with hemp fibers as the material basis. With a series of tests, the trio came up with a material mix that is more tear-resistant than paper bags, but is still biodegradable in three weeks.

More than 100 projects

More than 170 talents from Germany traveled to the Hanseatic city for four days to present their research work. The motto of the competition was “Make ideas big!”. The more than 100 projects covered topics from environmental protection to medicine.

Two 18-year-olds from Wittlich in Rhineland-Palatinate convinced the jury in the field of chemistry with their research on aluminum in deodorants. They compared commercially available deodorants and solutions of different salts in terms of their antiperspirant effect. “In our research, we found that many other substances have a similar effect to aluminum,” said winner Maike Zöllner.

She and her colleague Nike Remde took part in “Jugend forscht” for the first time and immediately made it to the national finals via regional and state competitions. “It’s pretty fascinating. Every competition is bigger,” said Maike Zöllner, who wants to study medicine after graduating from high school in 2024. The exchange between the participants is exciting. “There is no competition.”

Bastian Auer (20) from Bavaria received the Federal President’s prize for exceptional work. He developed a patient-friendly ECG concept in which only four instead of ten electrodes have to be applied. Neural networks reconstruct the missing signals from the six harder-to-apply electrodes for a complete and interference-free diagnosis.

“I predict train delays”

At the visitors’ day on Saturday, representatives of technology companies in search of new ideas, proud parents, teachers and the participants thronged the Bremen Stadthalle. “I predict train delays,” said Theo Döllmann (20) from the University of Augsburg. In two and a half years, he collected 1.2 terabytes of data on delays. Now his computer program with artificial intelligence can accurately predict whether a train connection will be on time or not.

The youngest participants included Jonas Bunkowski and Per Garbrecht (both 13) from Bremen. They worked on the Flettner rotor, a wind propulsion system for ships, and built a model boat with a polystyrene catamaran hull. The boys saw something about the chimney-shaped drive on television and were inspired by a round chip box as a component, said father Alexander Bunkowski. He was “super proud” of the eighth graders.

dpa

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