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 '91 ISEF

Area Student Wins at International Science Fair
by
Johnny C. Jones

 Bryan Jones, from Viburnum, Missouri, was one of two Missouri students to place during the Grand Awards Friday May 10th, 1991, the climax of the 42nd International Science and Engineering Fair in Orlando, Florida.

 The 748 projects at the ISEF represented the best from among some 150,000 projects prepared by students from 46 states and 11 countries and territories including Puerto Rico, Germany, Sweden, and Japan.  Bryan's Second Award  for his Engineering project, "Design and Construction of an Underground Mine Fire-Fighting Robot" placed him among the top 6 engineering projects from this elite group.  Bryan also won a 1st place from the Society for Mining, Metallurgy and Exploration, one of 48 organizations presenting awards to ISEF finalists.

 T-shirts with slogans like "Fizix Coach," "Physiologists Know the Inside Story" and "Chemists - the Human Element" abounded among the crowd of teachers, scientists, and parents that swelled the Orange County Convention Center.  The other Missouri student to place in the Grand Awards, Monwhea Jeng from St. Louis County Day School, won a Third Award in Mathematics. The other divisions were Behavioral and Social Sciences, Biochemistry, Botany, Chemistry, Computer Science, Earth and Space Sciences, Environmental Science, Medicine and Health, Microbiology, Physics, and Zoology.

 Bryan got the idea for his  project on the trip home from the 41st ISEF in Tulsa last year, and began work on it last May.  He used two computers, and IBM PC and a Motorola computer on a chip MC68HC11, and two programming languages, C and Assembly, to complete his working prototype. Bryan is grateful to the many people who contributed to his success with encouragement and support.

 Bryan, also a National Merit Finalist, plans to attend Rice University this fall to major in electrical engineering/computer science.  "What I enjoy most is using the computer to solve real- world problems," Bryan noted.  He hopes to continue work in robotics.