Shanya built a prototype fire-detection system using a wall-mounted thermal camera and can send text alerts when a heat source is left unattended.
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Thermo Fisher Scientific and Society for Science recently announced the winners of the Thermo Fisher Scientific Junior Innovators Challenge (Thermo Fisher JIC), the nation’s premier middle school science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) competition. Shanya Gill, 12, from San Jose, California; won the $25,000 Thermo Fisher Scientific ASCEND (Aspiring Scientists Cultivating Exciting New Discoveries) Award, the top prize in the competition.
In the summer of 2022, a fire destroyed a restaurant behind Shanya’s house. That incident inspired her to create a fire-detection system that involved connecting an affordable thermal camera to a compact computer. She then programmed the system to differentiate between people–which were identified as warm objects moving horizontally–and heat sources, such as an active gas burner, which were identified as hot objects that remained stationary.
