1700 students far from home, science and engineering projects as far as the eye can see, and thousands of tiny sharp objects all in one place.  It could easily be the stuff of nightmares but it’s actually a gathering of the best young scientific and engineering minds from all over the world.

This is the Intel International Science and Engineering Fair (Intel ISEF), the world’s largest international pre-college science competition.  And thanks to the generous support of the BHP Billiton Foundation and Intel Foundation, six BHP Billiton Science and Engineering Awards finalists will be representing Australia in Phoenix, Arizona this month.

For the participants – Hannah Sutton, Madeleine Maloof, Hugh McKay, Hayden Goodwin, Terence Johnson and Lachlan Wilson – it’s the opportunity of a lifetime to test their scientific and engineering ingenuity against the best in the world.

Hugh McKay is one of our participants. He’s a teenager from Tasmania who worked alone to turn bits of DVD and VCR players into cheap prosthetics for young amputees doing farm work in developing nations. While his school had a 3D printer, they didn’t have anyone who knew how to operate it. Now, after months of hard work and trial and error, Hugh is not only a leading expert on cheap prosthetics, but also the ‘go to guy’ for any of his school’s 3D printing needs. Hugh took out the inaugural Innovator to Market prize at the BHP Billiton Science and Engineering Awards 2016.

At the same time Hugh was developing his project, Madeleine Maloof was at her after-school job, sitting in a dental assistant chair in Sydney. She was thinking about the effect whitening toothpastes have on tooth enamel. Her research had some surprising results and won her third prize in the Investigations category at the BHP Billiton Science and Engineering Awards 2016.

You can find out more about the finalists attending Intel ISEF and their projects by visiting www.scienceawards.org.au

A team from the Science Teachers Association of New South Wales will also attend Intel ISEF.

The BHP Billiton Science and Engineering Awards are a partnership between BHP Billiton, through the BHP Billiton Foundation, CSIRO and the Australian Science Teachers Association, and have been presented annually since 1981.