2020 Award Winners

So much to celebrate this year!  In spite of all the barriers to participation created by the pandemic, our teachers, students (and parents!) and judges came through – with over 150 inventors, representing 25 schools from all across California.  Check out the list of participants with their inventions.

The Merit Awards (click here for names) went to those inventors within each grade whose inventions showed great promise and effort.

The Industry Focus Awards (click here for names) honored one invention within each of 13 Industry categories.  This year we have two sponsored awards – the Chevron 2020 Energy Award and the California State Railroad Museum 2020 Transportation Award.  Our thanks to them both – and we hope to have even more industry sponsors next year!!

This year 48 inventors are invited to participate (click here for names) in the Virtual National Invention Convention  sponsored by The Henry Ford in early June.

A new individual invention award was added this year – the Most Innovative.  Read about it below.    Best in Show and Most Marketable awards are on the right.

Jyothikaa Ramann, 10th Grade, Dougherty Valley High School, for her invention The Posture Genie “Better Posture, One Buzz at a Time”. She describes the problem and solution here – “PROBLEM: Posture. Something we have been reminded of from when we were beginning to walk to sitting behind computers everyday and something we yet still lack. Having a slouched posture can only do us harm and provide no benefits for the human body. … To maintain an upright stature as we evolved from primates, we developed 3 curves on our spine along our neck, upper back and lower back. This dangerous architecture serving as the base of standing upright causes all of our weight to collapse on one part of our body instead of being spread along a curved back, like an ape. This makes it even more imperative for us humans to sit, stand and walk upright due to the many problems which can happen to our health [both physical and mental] with a bad posture…[Poor posture]leads to multiple physical health issues such as lower back pain, neck pain, headaches, respiratory and cardiovascular issues, digestive issues and an overall higher risk of disease and death . It also contributes to multiple mental health issues such as poor mood, fatigue, lower productivity, and depression. SOLUTION: So how are we going to defeat this challenge? ..The Posture Genie… helps you practice a correct posture throughout every day eventually letting you enjoy the great, painless posture you’ve always wanted. [This device] is  multi-position posture trainer and medical assistant  that combines a sensing posture and angle technology, medical aid processes and machine learning (ML) for real-time multi-posture recognition, sustained habituation in cognitive adaptation in posture, and sensor detection of negative obstacles/traumatic events. Near your collarbone attached to your shirt it will help you achieve good posture, and if that is not the case, it will help you achieve that by giving a tiny reminder to straighten up by a little buzz. This invention will surely prevent long term and daily problems globally in the human body by simply straightening your posture.”

Jyothikaa will be receiving a $250 award from The Eagan Family Foundation.  This award is given in honor of Gail Eagan – Educator, Principal, Superintendent – who helped begin a program of invention education for young students in Northern California, over thirty years ago, which has, today, evolved into the California Invention Convention.

"Kids Inventing Their Future"