Exploring New Possibilities Through the Synopsys Science Fair

This March, I had the honor of attending the Synopsys Science Fair at the San Jose Convention Center. From building my project to setting everything up at the venue, and finally presenting it to the judges, the whole experience took months of hard work and effort.

For the Fair, I built an AI Enabled Camera Trap for poacher detection. Using a Raspberry Pi, IR sensor, LED, and Pi camera. My device functions like a regular camera trap,but also processes the pictures it takes. If it detects a human, then it will send a signal to the authorities. This camera trap will allow forest guards to quickly catch poachers the moment they enter a forest, helping stop the animal casualties.

Setting up my project at the convention center ended up being almost as challenging as building it. It started with a 15-minute walk in pouring rain, with me trying and failing to keep my display board from getting soaked. Once I got there, I had to wait hours just to check in. On top of that, I made a rookie mistake at check in and forgot to ask for permission slip to bring my physical device the next day. Because of that, I had to get back in line for another hour to get that slip. After finally getting checked in, I had to walk another 15 minutes in the rain to the parking garage—only to find it was locked. Luckily, my dad was able to call the garage operators and get the gate open.

The next day was completely different—bright and sunny. I got there early at 1:00 p.m. I set up my camera trap next to my board, and grabbed my badge from the front desk on the way out. Right as I was leaving, I saw a girl asking the fair managers to let her check in because she’d missed the day before due to traffic. Unfortunately, they didn’t let her in. I felt sympathy for her, but also immense relief that I had checked in the day before. This showed me why it is important to do everything on time, even if it is difficult, because the consequences for tardiness might be severe. Then, I entered a line that would allow me to re-enter the building. 

After waiting in line for what felt like forever, the middle schoolers were finally let into the venue. I set up my project and hooked everything up to power. I ran into some trouble with my power bank, but managed to fix it before the judges came around. They seemed incredibly impressed by what I had built! Even though I didn’t win, I am very happy that the judges were impressed by my invention and hope to improve my skills before the fair next year.

Attending the Synopsys science fair was a very enlightening experience for me. Before, I over glorified my own accomplishments, and my ego allowed me to think that a victory in synopsis was in the bag. However, that couldn’t have been farther from the truth. Inside that building, I encountered so many people who were smarter than me and had inventions that were both cooler and much more useful than mine. Some people created robotic drones to help put out fires, while others built entire AI models from scratch. This made me realize how much harder I would need to work in order to compete with some of the geniuses I was in the same room as. While the whole process of signing up for and competing in Synopsys was tedious, the valuable lessons I learned at the end made it worth it.