Credit: FJSL
The Fondation Jeunes Scientifiques Luxembourg (FJSL) has announced that as the major competition for young scientists, Taiwan International Science Fair (TISF), drew to a close, two young Luxembourgers left Taipei with a 3rd and 4th prize, respectively.
Krzesimir Hyzyk (seventeen years old) won the 4th prize in the "Computer Science and Information Engineering" category and Steve Mendeleev (nineteen years old) won 3rd prize in the "Mathematics" category.
TISF is a prestigious competition on the Asian continent. From 27 January to 2 February 2024, it brought together competitors from 27 countries, including Macau, Hong Kong and Taiwan. These 600 budding scientists defended over 200 research and development projects in twelve categories (mathematics, chemistry, animal sciences, plant sciences, biochemistry, medicine and health sciences, engineering, social and behavioural sciences, physics and astronomy, earth and environmental sciences, computer science and information engineering and environmental engineering).
Krzesimir Hyzyk and Steve Mendeleev were selected by the Jonk Fuerscher National Contest in March 2023, to represent the Luxembourg delegation, under the aegis of FJSL and with the support of Paul Wurth SA.
With his "Local Positioning System" project, Krzesimir developed an alternative system to the traditional GPS (Global Positioning System). He designed from A to Z the software and hardware for a tool with multiple applications (from navigation to inventory tracking) and 50 times cheaper than products currently on the market. This is not Krzesimir's first time participating: this young computer prodigy, still in secondary school for a few months at the European School Luxembourg I, has been writing lines of code every day since he was a child and has already won several awards in other international competitions, such as the nearby CASTIC competition organised by mainland China. These competitions are opportunities "to connect with like-minded young people, while facilitating the discovery of new cultures" commented the new medal winner.
As for Steve Mendeleev, a former student of the International School of Luxembourg (ISL) and now in his first year of a Bachelor's degree at Stanford University, he presented solutions to a very particular mathematical problem still poorly studied: the trajectory of a ball in a three-dimensional billiard. More precisely, in a rectangular cuboïd whose sides have integer lengths - called an arithmetic billiard - how are the points of contact between the ball and the billiard's edges distributed? This work made it possible to generalise to 3D the results obtained for a 2D billiard at the University of Luxembourg.
In addition, a new symmetrical exchange agreement has just been signed between TISF representatives and the FJSL: participation in the Luxembourg International Science Expo - LISE, a non-competitive event organised annually by the FJSL - is now officially included among the special prizes awarded at the final ceremony of the Taipei competition. The prize was awarded last Friday to two Taiwanese talents:
- young chemist Long-Siang Lee for his project "Synthesis of functionalised mesoporous silica nanoparticles as drug delivery carriers for therapeutic agents";
- young physicist Yi-Feng Huang for his project "Mechanical Analysis of skipping stones with different attack angles".
