Annie Ostojic is a student who is shaping the future with her idea for a kitchen innovation.
After more than two years of working to improve the design of traditional microwave ovens, on Oct. 6, she won a $25,000 educational award for her “overall scientific skills and her ability to work with others” while unveiling a better shape for the design of kitchen microwaves.
Ostojic, 13, from Munster, believes with her microwave design, food cooks more evenly, instead of the usual “cold spots” following cooking times.
She joined 29 other finalists at the Fifth Annual Broadcom MASTERS competition. MASTERS stands for Math, Applied Science, Technology and Engineering for Rising Stars. This was her second year as a finalist. The teen, who education career includes Wilbur Wright Middle School and Munster High School, was a finalist in the 2014 Broadcom MASTERS and also participated in the 2015 Broadcom MASTERS International program for middle-school students last May in Pittsburgh, Penn.
These programs were created by Society for Science & the Public, which publishes Science News for Students. The Samueli Foundation, a non-profit organization created by Broadcom founder Henry Samueli, provided the 2015 award winnings. Nine other students also took home cash prizes or money to attend science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) summer programs.
Students qualify for the Broadcom MASTERS with a first-place school science fair project. But winning at the MASTERS competition requires much more than that project. The finalists must also compete in team challenges and work together to solve problems in subjects ranging from marine biology to computer programming.
Ostojic’s research project probing “how to get rid of those pesky cool spots in your microwave” impressed this year’s judges. For last year’s project, she microwaved marshmallows and cheese cubes and watched them with an infrared camera. After she noticed the cool spots in her microwave, she then built a small cup that helped to heat food evenly.
“I thought it would be more practical to redesign the microwave oven cavity itself,” she said.
“I knew there were lots of hot spots in the microwave oven even past the turntable. So I wanted some way to reflect that energy toward the center to cook more evenly.”
The young engineer tried lining the microwave with reflective materials to redirect heat in toward the center of the oven cavity. She said aluminum foil worked best, and then set out to change the shape of the microwave cavity. She found that by rounding the rectangular cavity, she could effectively concentrate heat toward its center.
She has already applied for a patent for her new microwave design and said she is already moving on to new projects.
“You always have unanswered questions in research,” she said.
“No matter what, you’re going to find some sort of new angle that’s going to be interesting. This encourages you to just keep going.”
In addition to her submitted project, the rest of her winning score came from a series of research challenges. The 30 finalists were grouped into five-member teams that competed for three days in challenges held around the San Francisco Bay area of California. Teams identified invertebrates in bay-bottom mud, built bridges and designed their own computers. They also went on tours of Google, Lucasfilm and NASA’s Ames Research Center.
