Skip to main content

Sriharshita Musunuri a big winner at international Intel science competition


A science-minded freshman from the Mill Creek area won big at the Super Bowl of science and engineering competitions.

Say the following out loud: Application of Tetrahedrite and Magnesium Silicide in a Novel Thermoelectric Unicouple to Generate Electricity from Industrial Waste Heat.

Few of us can make it through that phrase in one breath, let alone know what it means. But for one high-school freshman from the Mill Creek area, it is much more than just a string of 18 words. It is the title of her science project, which earned her a trip across the country for the prestigious international competition where she emerged a winner in various categories.

Sriharshita Musunuri, 15, received the $5,000 Best in Category award in the Physical Energy group at the Intel International Science and Engineering Fair (ISEF), which took place in Pittsburgh last week.

Musunuri also won a separate $3,000 first-place award for the Physical Energy group, $3,000 in stock from United Technologies Corporation, and the Innovation Exploration Award, which will take her to Pasadena, Calif., to present her research at Caltech Institute of Technology.

That’s a big achievement for someone currently finishing her first year at Jackson High School in Mill Creek. The annual Intel competition — featuring 1,700 students from more than 75 nations — is one of the world’s most competitive.

Andy Sevald, a teacher at Musunuri’s high school, called it the “freaking Super Bowl.”

Musunuri joined Jackson High’s Science Research and Engineering Club in September with a desire to create a device that converts industrial waste heat into energy.

“There’s a lot of waste that’s being lost in the environment, and there’s not a lot that’s being done to recover it, so that sparked my interest,” she said.

Through her research, Musunuri came up with the idea to combine two materials used to produce electricity: tetrahedrite and magnesium silicide. By creating a temperature differential, a voltage could be created that can then lead to energy.

“This hadn’t really been done before,” she said.

With Sevald as her adviser and help from centers such Alphabet Energy and the UW Washington Nanofabrication Facility, Musunuri was able to gather the necessary tools to build her project and gather data.

“She was reading into this stuff before school even started,” Sevald said. “This is quite a ninth-grader.”

After winning second place overall at the Washington State Science and Engineering Fair in March and a silver medal at the I-SWEEEP science fair in Houston in May, Musunuri was invited to attend the Intel competition.

Along with the prizes she received, her win means that Washington state’s fair and Jackson High will also each get a $1,000 grant. Sevald said Jackson High will use its $1,000 for field trips, materials and transportation to future competitions.

Musunuri plans to save part of her earnings for college, or to help her do future research.

Several other Seattle-area finalists competed at the Intel competition, too.

Mahalaxmi Elango of Interlake High School in Bellevue won $1,000 in the “Computational Biology and Bioinformatics” group. Rosemichelle Marzan, Cameron Beardsley and Hyrum Bock of Northwest Nuclear Consortium in Federal Way earned $500 in the “Physics and Astronomy” category.

Sonia Murthy, Ethan Perrin and Sophia Tevosyan from Nikola Tesla STEM High School in Redmond won $1,000 in the “Environmental Engineering” group. They were also awarded $1,000 by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Kamma Cine Heroes

1) N.T.Rama Rao 2) Akkineni Nageswara Rao 3) Gattamaneni Krishna 4) Sobhan Babu (Uppu Sobhana Chalapathi Rao) 5) Gummadi Venkatwsara Rao 6) Maganti Murali Mohan 7) Manchu Mohan Babu 8) Kongara Jaggayya 9) Giri babu (Yerra Seshagiri Rao) 10) Sridhar Surapaneni  11) Madala Ranga rao 12) Nandamuri Bala Krishna 13) SaiChand Tripuraneni 14) Akkineni Nagarjuna 15) Daggubati Venkatesh 16) Gadde Rajendra Prasad 17) Raja Sekhar (Kasukurthi) 18) Daggubati Raja 19) Bhagya Raj 20) Nandamuri Hari Krishna 21) Veeramachineni Jagapathi Babu 22) Meka Srikanth 23) Vadde Naveen 24) Tottempudi Venu 25) Gattamaneni Mahesh Babu 26) Junior. N.T.R 27) Sivaji Sontineni 28) Nandamuri Taraka Ratna 29) Nandamuri Kalyanaram 30) Yarlagadda Sumanth 31) Tottempudi Gopi Chand 32) Manchu Vishnu Vardhan 33) Manchu Manoj 34) Edara Naresh 35) Edara Aryan Rajesh 36) Ram Pothineni  37) Myneni Sarvanand 38) Daggubati Rana 39) Akkineni Naga Chaitanya 40) Nani (Ghanta Naveen Kum...

Kamma Movie Directors

List of Kamma Movie Ditrectors 1) Gudavalli Ramabrahmam 2) Akkineni Lakshmi Vara Prasad (LV Prasad) 3) Kovelamudi Bapayya 4) Veeramachineni Madhusudhana Rao 5) Kovelamudi S.Prakasa Rao 6) Kolli Pratyagatma 7) G.Sambasiva Rao 8) Tammareddy Krishnamurthy 9) Mannava Balayya 10) Tatineni Prakasa Rao 11) Tatineni Rama Rao 12) Tatineni Prasad 13) Kovelamudi Raghavendra Rao 14) Gutta Ramineedu 15) Kolli Hemambaradhara Rao  16) Uppalapati Visveswara Rao 17) Tripuraneni Maharadhi 18) Tripuraneni Gopichand 19) Tottempudi Krishna 20) Madala Ranga Rao 21) Siva Nageswara Rao 22) Uppalapati Narayana Rao 23) P.Sarat 24) A.Mohan Gandhi 25) Bezawada Gopal 26) T.Kranthi Kumar 27) Maganti Vijaya Bapineedu 28) Tammareddy Bharadwaj 29) Akkineni Kutumba Rao 30) K.Vasu 31) Edara VV Satyanarayana 32) Muppalaneni Siva 33) Yalamanchili VS Chowdary 34) Theja Jasti 35) Sreenu Vytla 36) Koduri Srisaila Sri Rajamouli 37) Vemulapalli Srikanth 38) AS Ravikumar Chowdary 39)...

G.D.Naidu, first generation Kamma Industrialist

G. D. Naidu (Gopalswamy Doraiswamy Naidu) was an Indian Inventor and engineer who is sometimes referred as the Edison of India. He is credited in manufacturing the first electric motor in India. His contributions were primarily industrial and span the fields of electrical, mechanical, agricultural (Hybrid cultivation) and automobile engineering. First of all he is a scientist but he studied up to only third standard. Naidu was born on March 23rd , 1893 , in Kalangal, near Coimbatore. He began his transport business in 1920 , with the purchase of a passenger auto-coach. He drove it for the service between Pollachi and Palani. In a few years, his United Motor Service (UMS) owned the most efficient fleet of public transport vehicles in the country. In 1937, the first motor to be produced in India, was brought out from G D Naidu's UMS factory. He invented an electric razor - Rasant - that gave users far more shaves than other existing options, in the international market. Among his ot...

LRG Naidu - A Socially Responsible Entrepreneur - Donar

Lakshminaickenpalayam Ramaswamy Govindasamy Naidu ( 1894 - 1970 ) was born as the fourth child to Ramaswamy Naidu and Chinnasamy Ammal on the 7 th of January 1894. L.R.Govindasamy Naidu was popularly known as LRG Naidu and he was an entrepreneur with a vision which encompassed several aspects of commerce and social life. He was closely associated with the Industrial Scientist GD Naidu from his early days. LRG Naidu married Ranganayaki Ammal and couple made Tirupur their home from the year 1924. The couple was blessed with four dynamic sons and a daughter Vijayalakshmi who was married to V.N.Ramachandran of Premier Mills.   It was from Tirupur that he grew from good to great and he ensured that his enterprises and policies were built to last. His Vijayalakshmi Motor Service,City Mofussil Transports and Tirupur Karur Transports were headquartered at Tirupur and the other bus company Madura Public Conveyance from his stable had 40 buses and the operations where centered around D...

List of Kamma Chief Ministers & Governors

Sri.Edpuganti RaghavendraRao List of Kamma Chief Ministers: 1. Bollini Munuswamy Naidu:  (Primie Minister) Chief Minister of Madras State - 1930-34 2. Sir.E.Raghavendra Rao:  Chief Minister of Madhya Pradesh (Central Province ) - 1936-37 3. Nandamuri Taraka Rama Rao: Chief Minister of Andhra Pradesh during 1983, 1984-89 and 1994-1995 4. Nadendla Bhaskara Rao: Chief Minister of Andhra Pradesh - 1984 5. Nara Chandra Babu Naidu: Chief Minister of Andhra Pradesh during (1995-99 1999-2004) and 2014-  List of Kamma Governors: 1. Sir.Edpuganti .Raghavendra Rao, Governor, Central Province and Berar (1935-36) 2. P.Ramachandran (Tamilnadu), Governor, Kerala (1982-88) 3. P.S.Rama Mohana Rao, Governor, Tamilnadu (2002-2004) 4. Vadlapatla.Rama Devi, Governor, Himachal Pradesh (1997-99) Karnataka (1999-2005) 5. Kambhampati Haribabu Governor, Mijoram (2021 - 

Munu Adhi: Former Speaker Tamilnadu Assembly and 4 times MLA

Munu Adhi (Born 4 September 1926, Died 21 June 2005) born at Tambaram near Chennai - Tamilnadu.  Mr Munu Adhi started his political career as a member of the Socialist Party in 1945. He joined the DMK in 1953 and was elected to the Tamil Nadu Assembly for four consecutive terms, in 1962, 1965, 1971 and 1977.  Having begun his political career with the DMK, the four-time Member of the Legislative Assembly, switched his loyalty to the AIADMK in 1972 when M G Ramachandran founded the party, after breaking away from the DMK.  For the fourth time, he was elected to the state Assembly in 1977 when the AIADMK, headed by MGR, came to power for the first time and Munu Adhi was made the Speaker of the Assembly. He held that post till 1980. He continued his loyalty with the AIADMK till 1996 after which he sided with S Thirunavukkarasu, a former AIADMK minister, who floated his own party which subsequently merged with the BJP.  The Adhi College of Engineering ...

List of 30 Kamma Billionaires and rankings

The IIFL Wealth Hurun India Rich List 2021 shows that India has more than 1,000 individuals who have a net worth of  ₹ 1,000 crore or more across 119 cities. The cumulative wealth in the country has gone up by 51 per cent, while the average wealth has also increased by 25 per cent, the report by Hurun India said. 30 Kamma business and industrialists finds place in the list from AP, Tamilnadu, Karnataka and Maharashtra. 14. Murali Divi Rs76,000 crores Divis Laboratories 179. Venkateswarlu Jasti 9,600 crores Suven Pharma  190. Veeraiah Chowdary Nannapaneni 9,100 crores NATCO Laboratories  209. Chava Satyanarayana 8,400 crores Laurus Labs 264. Satya Nadella 6,200 crores Microsoft 368. Mandava PrabhakaraRao 4,300 crores Nuziveedu seeds 377. Ella KrishnaMurthy 4,100 crores Bharat Biotech 384. Doppalapudi Bhaktavatsala Rao 4000 crores Privi Speciality Chemicals 398. Galla Ramachandra Naidu  3,900 crores Amara Raja Batteries  398. Chinta VisveswaraRao 3,900 crores...

THE MAN AND HIS LEGACY A portrait of PSG Govindasamy Naidu

Great legacies have mostly had humble beginnings. But, they have all been ignited by a grand dream. One such simple dream that has enriched generations in this entire region is the legacy of the PSG family and its institutions. Coimbatore today is known nationally for its industries and educational institutions, which were founded and patronised by its enterprising people. If one were to go into the past to study the origin of the early industries and educational institutions, the PSG legacy will weave a beautiful story. The founder The P.S.G. family, belonging to the Kammavar sect of the Naidu community, traces its history to Periya Veedu Venkatarama Naidu in the later part of the 18th or the beginning of the 19th centuries. The letter `P' in P.S.G. is derived from Periya Veedu, `S' after Sama Naidu, the third son of Venkatarama Naidu, and `G' after Govindadamy Naidu, the second son of Sama Naidu. The Origin of the family could be traced to its forbear Sri Venkatarama Nai...

D.Balasundaram The machine man Architects of Coimbatore

The first indigenous motor in the country was produced in Coimbatore in 1939 , thanks to an engineer who was working in the National Engineering Works of G.D.Naidu. An electrical engineer from Sheffield University, England, D. Balasundaram had training in a major industrial unit there that had 12,000 employees manufacturing components for power stations. He is said to have used the “copper rotor welding” technology to design this motor. Born in 1913 at Avarampalayam ,Coimbatore, he first established Coimbatore Engineering and Trading Company to manufacture components for textile machinery. When his Textool Company was born, the first ring frame was produced. According to historian C.R.Elangovan, this was an achievement because it was a period immediately after the Second World War when everything was scarce and there were too many restrictions too. Besides, everything had to be imported for which also there were a number of controls, licences and practical proble...

G.K. Devarajulu The textile city Architect of Coimbatore

The brothers who contributed substantially to the industrialisation of Coimbatore are G.K. Devarajulu and G.K. Sundaram . The sons of cotton merchant G.Kuppusamy Naidu, who also had a ginning unit, both evinced immense capability. Devarajulu, born in 1911, was a man with appetite for risks.     He set up the Lakshmi Mills at the age of just 21. As the machinery for the cotton units were imported from Europe under the impression that those from Japan were substandard, Devarajulu visited the factory in Japan to study whether the machinery would suit Indian requirements. Consequently all the machinery for his unit were imported from Japan. He also introduced the administrative system he found good in Japanese units. When Devarajulu and Mr. Sundaram joined Textool as shareholders in 1940, the company produced its first ring frame. Devarajulu joined hands with R.Venkataswamy Naidu of Peelamedu to set up the South India Viscose for which he imported m...