Anika Patel and Angela Riggins of Forest Ridge School in Bellevue, Wash. are traveling to the nation’s capital this week with their parents and teacher, Steven Harris, to participate in the White House Science Fair on October 18th. The 7th grade students recently won first place in the 7-9th grade category of the 2010 Toshiba/NSTA ExploraVision Awards Program, a science competition that encourages K-12 students to explore and create a vision of future technology combining their imaginations with the tools of science.
Their winning entry, the EPPIC – Ecological Paper Printing and Ink Collector – is a futuristic laser printer system that would extract used ink from paper by reducing the graphene surface contact area, then reusing the collected ink and paper to make new prints. Key to the innovation is a new type of ink technology that would stick to paper, yet also have the ability to release from it when necessary. The students looked to the world of nature for their inspiration; specifically the Gecko, which has the ability to “stick” and "unstick” its feet. For a complete demonstration of the technology go to: http://dev.nsta.org/evwebs/1755F.
