Curiosity often lights the spark of invention, and for Sirish Subash, it was a simple question that ignited his journey to becoming **"America's Top Young Scientist"** and winning a $25,000 cash prize. Wondering if his mom’s reminder to wash fruit before eating it was as vital as she claimed, Sirish let his inquisitiveness lead the way. The result? An AI-powered sensor that could change the way we think about food safety forever. 

He discovered that washing only partially eliminates the pesticide residues found in 70% of vegetable items, which have been connected to potential health issues like cancer and Alzheimer's. “We could lower the risk of those health problems by avoiding consuming them if we could detect them.”

Spectrophotometry is used by his PestiSCAND equipment to measure the amount of light reflected off the surface of fruits and vegetables. He examined more than 12,000 samples of tomatoes, apples, spinach, and strawberries in his research. PestiSCAND can search for the precise light wavelengths associated with pesticide residues since different materials reflect and absorb light at different wavelengths. 

Once the food has been scanned, PestiSCAND analyzes the lightwaves using an AI machine learning model to detect the presence of pesticides. The prototype met the project's efficacy and speed goals with a detection accuracy rate of over 85% thanks to its sensor and CPU.

(Source: Google Images) 

What His Mind Has Ahead ~

(Source: Google Images) 

By the time he enters college, Sirish aims to have the prototype on the market, and he intends to keep working on it with a price point objective of under $20 per device. The boy, a middle school student at the Gwinnett School of Math, Science, and Technology, is one of nine finalists in the competition. He has been working on perfecting his prototype for the past four months with one of the 3M experts who work one-on-one with the children. 

This month, Sirish won the coveted title at the last Challenge events held at 3M global headquarters in St. Paul, Minnesota.

Torie Clarke, chief public affairs officer at 3M, said, "This year's Young Scientist Challenge finalists have shown an incredible ability to develop creative solutions to some of the world's most pressing challenges. I am beyond impressed and inspired by them."