STEM School 6th Grader Wins Paradigm World ChallengePosted on 08/28/2023
Congratulations to STEM School Highlands Ranch 6th grader Anirudh Rao who won the Paradigm World Challenge! The ceremony was held in Los Angeles and Anirudh earned the recognition for inventing an early warning system for tornadoes. He is the youngest to ever receive this particular award, which includes legal consultation to move forward with the patent process.
Paradigm World Challenge receives thousands of entries each year from all over the world, and three finalists—one from each division: elementary, middle, and high school—are selected. The winning finalists are awarded an all-expenses-paid trip to Disneyland, including an exclusive red carpet invitation-only black-tie Prize Ceremony event. During this event, finalists present their projects, and one grand prize winner is chosen from the three divisions.
Anirudh received the grand prize for "Revere" named after the revolutionary Paul Revere. Revere is an early tornado detection system based on infrasound sensors and other sensors equipped in a system of drones with arduino and raspberry Pi to alert the weather stations. The system increases the current warning time for tornadoes from about 13 minutes to 40 minutes. Anirudh has been studying the movement of tornado alley for a few years to find that the problem is getting worse with global warming. Sufficient warning time can save lives and belongings. He first came up with the idea when his friend's home in Nashville was impacted by tornadoes. His next steps are to field test collaborating with local weather stations in a designated area and enhance it with AI models to predict tornadoes before the season.
