(electronic music)
- I was like hyperventilating
and I'm super pale,
and I'm like shaking and I'm crying.
And I just can't believe it,
but it really hadn't hit me that I was going to ISEF,
the International Science and Engineering Fair.
My name's Annalisa Minke, I'm 16.
I go to Immaculate Heart High School
and I'm a junior.
(school bell ringing)
I'm a mildly social person
but I'm really excited
to just meet people from other countries
that are my age and have similar passions.
(electronic music)
So this is this, wait, I don't know what date it is.
Sunday, Monday, Tuesday.
Is it Wednesday or Thursday?
Thursday, so this is the fourth day of ISEF.
It's public viewing day
which means most of the time you have to have these badges
to get on the floor,
but today anyone can come on the floor
and just ask questions about all the cool projects here.
Which there's a lot of cool projects here.
It's been amazing.
I've met so many people from other countries.
I've exchanged social media.
We've exchanged a little tokens during the pin exchange.
- My name is Mia Madur.
I'm 17 years old.
I'm from Japan.
- I'm Adrian Corom.
I'm 18 and I'm from Carrollton, Maryland.
- My name is Rand and this is my partner Tela.
We are from Jordan.
- My name is Ramisha.
I'm 16, I'm representing Pakistan.
We are here.
I live in the slumbug.
- My name is Andre.
I'm from Russia, from Moscow.
- One, two, three.
- [All] Thank you.
- I would probably describe myself as extremely busy
by choice.
I do a lot of different activities,
dance, cello, baritone, taekwondo.
I do a lot of reading as well.
I don't sleep a lot,
which isn't very good for me at all.
Both my parents are educated as engineers.
My father's a practicing engineer
and my mother is a math teacher.
With that kind of influence I really liked science
from a very young age.
I wanted to be an entomologist at age four.
So when school required science fair,
I wasn't all that disappointed or annoyed
but some of my classmates were
and my first project was about butterflies,
well caterpillars.
In high school, it's not required.
I'm the only person
in my high school who does science fairs.
I will ask just questions, mostly to myself.
Like how was this thing constructed?
How does this work?
Why does it work?
And the more I do science fair,
the more I try to answer questions,
the more I seem to be asking them.
I don't like wearing the safety glasses
because it makes it harder to see the dry ice,
but my mom gets really mad at me if I don't wear them.
I was really curious why no one
was looking into the effect
of water vapor.
So I decided I might as well do it.
And that proved to be extraordinarily difficult.
We're seeing just an increase in the power of storms
and that might be because when we burn hydrocarbons
we put extra water and extra energy
into the right parts of the atmosphere
to create those kinds of monster storms.
So more wind and more water could contribute
to more extreme and more frequent storm systems.
That knowledge can help those who predict weather
understand these relationships a bit more
so we might be able to predict weather
with slightly more accuracy.
- Well thanks.
- [Annalisa] No problem.
- They need to set at the door at 12:30,
so they haven't left yet.
Don't worry about it.
You are more special than whatever anybody else wants.
- My name is Amanda.
I am Annalisa's older sister.
I also happen to be her adult sponsor on this trip to ISEF.
I had competed at ISEF in 2015, 2016, 2017.
- [Annalisa] So I usually don't do very well
in the science fair.
That hasn't really stopped me from doing it
because I just genuinely like to do it.
- [Amanda] She's been doing science fair the same time
as I have and she just hasn't had a project
that blew everybody away.
- [Annalisa] I'm particularly stubborn
and the fact I've lost so often has made me more determined
to win because of that stubbornness.
- [Amanda] This was the one that she hit a home run with.
I'm so, so proud of her
and I'm honored that I got to be here.
I grew up like instead of playing with barbie dolls,
I had marble tracks and I had race car tracks
and I had block galore.
And so, one of those things of growing up building things
and testing things and doing stuff,
kind of translated into middle school,
which then translated into high school.
And for me, translated into college.
- [Interviewer] And what are you doing know?
- I am a hydrology major at the University of Arizona
and I have an undergraduate grant
to continue my science fair project at the university level.
- Which means if you ever were to.
What I've learned from other people
who have been here before,
being successful in terms of like winning stuff,
you have to really do something
that contributes something to society.
Whether it's more information or a new invention,
or some kind of super cool whatever,
it has to help someone.
Being successful in terms of like,
successful in your own way,
you just have to not be super nervous and shy.
It's like come out and meet people
and just be yourself and meet a bunch of cool people.
And I consider that being
as successful as winning something.
- Do you need anything else?
- Not that I know of.
- I hope is that she goes to U of A
so that we can kind of be sisters in crime,
but that's completely up to her.
I know that she's going to one day change the world
so it's a matter of how do I support her
to get to steps so she can do that.