Jake Martin, 18 “The Wood Powered Engine”

My name is Jake Martin I did my first project when I was in Yr 8. The “Water Cycle in a Box” it was a teachers aid that showed students how the water cycle works. I got a highly commended at my school fair and didn’t go to regionals. Then I went to high school and I stopped doing the science and technology fair because we didn’t do it at Cambridge High School.

In Yr 10 my social studies teacher gave me a handbook for the Waikato Science and Technology Fair. I ended up building a welder that turned water into hydrogen and then burnt it. I got the designs off the net and modified it because I couldn’t afford all the parts I used lunch boxes and stainless steel building plates. I won the top technology prize at the Waikato Science and Technology Fair and $300. That was the first time i thought you could get money from science.

The next year I built a carburetor that mixed petrol with water and then turned it into steam and petrol vapor the heat from the petrol heated the steam up in the engine and made it run more efficiently. Problem was I didn’t work out how much more efficiently and why it worked so I came away with not much that year. This made me want to start a new project that would be well tested and would work really well I started the year by doing a plan for NCEA and in the end I managed to get over 50 credits for my project. I got in contact with CREST and they got me in contact with a whole lot of engineers and scientists which were amazing. I ended up being offered a job at the local engineering workshop Wilkinsons’ transport engineers and access to all their tools and scrap metal in the weekends to build me project. I wanted to build an engine that ran on wood these weren’t new there were over 1 million running during WW2 and lots of plans for them on the net. I emailed an expert in gasification and he let me come over to his house and run his gasifier and power an engine on wood and he helped me design the unit. Here’s the video I did for it.

I went to the Waikato Science and Technology Fair and won best technology project and best in fair and $800 and a work experience scholarship at NIWA. I was then nominated for Realise the Dream the national awards for the top projects in New Zealand. I was picked to go down to Wellington for a week going around various research institutes and cool places like Te Papa. I meet lots of friends and had an amazing time. On the last night the travel awards were given out and i won a trip to China to the Beijing Youth Science Creation Competition. Before I went in March we went back down to Wellington for the awards ceremony. I won the Yr 12-13 top research award and the Supreme award for research and communication in New Zealand. I came away with $11,000. I then went to China and won the international award at the Beijing science fair.

I was then asked to represent New Zealand in the European Union Competition for Young Scientists in Paris in September 2009. I went by myself and had an amazing week with some amazing people. I ended up winning the Euroforum prize (the first non-European student to be awarded it) a week paid work experience at the Fusion reactor in Culham in England. Travel and food included. I was then told that I had been picked for a travel scholarship to I-SWEEEP the international sustainable science fair in Houston, Texas in July 2010.

I am going to study a Bachelor of Science this year and hopefully go into research in chemistry. Doing a project was the best thing I have ever done. It has opened up doors that I could have never imagined. If theres anything I can leave you with is aim high, do your best and research, research, research and you’ll be amazed at what the world has to offer.