Two students win third place in American science fair

Pham Duc Linh and Nguyen Duc An from the Han Thuyen High School in the northern province of Bac Ninh won third place for their project on "Robot arms for disabled people with hand paralysis" in the Engineering Mechanics category. The duo shared the ranking with contestants from the U.S., China, Australia and Switzerland.

Theirs was the only one among seven projects submitted by 14 Vietnamese students that won a top-three prize at the global high school STEM competition, receiving a cash prize of $1,000.

Two other projects by Vietnamese students won special prizes from the Society for Science organization.

"Stimulating mathematical thinking through a system of geometry exercises and games designed with Scratch software" by Huynh Dang Khoa and Le Anh Chau from the Nguyen Tri Phuong Secondary School in Thua Thien-Hue Province received a certificate of merit from the Mathematical Association of America.

A project on "Psychological difficulties in online learning for high school students" by Hoang Viet Phuc and Vu Phuong Mai of Lao Cai Province's Lao Cai High School received a certification from the American Psychological Association and cash prize of $500 from the American Statistical Association.

Because of the Covid-19 pandemic, this year's Regeneron ISEF was held online from May 3-21. The competition saw the participation of 2,000 contestants from more than 80 countries who came up with 1,500 projects.

The jury consisted of more than 1,000 professors, scientists, engineers and representatives of leading research centers and agencies in the world.

The Regeneron ISEF is a highly competitive contest where only 25 percent of participating projects win prizes.

Michelle Hua from the U.S, won the top prize of $75,000 for her formulation of an artificial intelligence-based algorithm used for human action recognition.

Two $50,000 prizes went to Catherine Kim and Daniel Shen, both American students.

The Regeneron International Science and Engineering Fair (Regeneron ISEF), held by the Society for Science for over 70 years, is the world's largest global science competition for high school students.