America has a new "Top Young Scientist."
Kevin Tang, an eighth grade student at Cedarlane Academy in Hacienda Heights, California, was crowned the winner of the 2025 Young Scientist Challenge on Oct. 14 at the 3M Innovation Center in St. Paul, Minnesota. This competition is designed for middle school students in grades 5 to 8 and organized by 3M in partnership with Discovery Education.
The assignment was simple: Identify an everyday problem and come up with a workable solution.
Nearly a dozen finalists from across the country participated in the challenge, creating a unique project with assistance from a 3M-afiliated mentor over the summer, according to the company's news release.
With help from mentor Mark Gilbertson, a 3M senior robotics and automation engineer, Tang created "FallGuard," a fall detection system that can "accelerate emergency responses to falls among older adults at home, even in the dark."
