Teenage girl creates sustainable, renewable algae biofuel under her bed

via extremetech.com

In what is essentially a fancy science fair sponsored by Intel, over 1,700 high school seniors enter projects each year in order to not only be crowned the country’s youngest mad scientists, but have a chance to win $100,000. This year, Sara Volz claimed that crown and a $100,000 four-year scholarship, thanks to her efficient algae-based biofuel lab — that she created under her bed.

The Science Talent Search has been running for 70 years, and Intel hopped on board as the sponsor back in 1998. Since the competition’s beginning, seven participants have won the Nobel Prize, and 11 have won MacArthur Foundation Genius grants. So, the competition has a bit of pedigree. Up to 30 finalists receive a monetary scholarship, with first place bringing home $100,000, second place bringing home $75,000, and third place raking in $50,000. This year, 17-year-old Colorado Springs student Sara Volz took explored if algae can become an economically viable form of biofuel. Like any good high school or college project, she developed the majority of the system in her room, under her loft bed.

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Hiring New Grads? Don’t Make These 3 Mistakes

via mashable.com

If you’re hiring in the coming months, you very likely have at least one eye on the newest crop of potential future employees: soon-to-be-graduating college seniors.

New grads can be a great resource for companies of any size—they’re full of energy and new ideas and willing to get their hands dirty in their first real-world job.

But as you’re thinking about recruiting new grads this spring, take a peek at what things look like from the other side of the table.

College recruiting has some interesting—and sometimes unfortunate—parallels to dating in middle school. Students are “flirting” for the first time, and recruiters are all too often making the big mistakes their parents told them to avoid during early courtship.

As you’re interviewing new grads for their first gig, there are three rules to follow to make sure you don’t jump into the wrong relationship (or lose a great candidate).

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German student creates electromagnetic harvester that gathers free electricity from thin air

via extremetech.com

A German student has built an electromagnetic harvester that recharges an AA battery by soaking up ambient, environmental radiation. These harvesters can gather free electricity from just about anything, including overhead power lines, coffee machines, refrigerators, or even the emissions from your WiFi router or smartphone.

This might sound a bit like hocus-pocus pseudoscience, but the underlying science is actually surprisingly sound. We are, after all, just talking about wireless power transfer — just like the smartphones that are starting to ship with wireless charging tech, and the accompanying charging pads.

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Why Writing With Our Hands Is Still Important

via readwrite.com

I first noticed something was off when I went to pay my rent one month. The window for a timely online transfer of funds was closing, so to get the money to my landlord in time, I'd have to do something unusual. I took out my checkbook, grabbed a pen and started writing the date.

It felt weird. My hand cramped a little, churning out numbers and letters with the slightest - but still noticeable - discomfort. My handwriting sucked. It suddenly occurred to me that I hadn't actually written anything by hand in a long, long time. Just a few years earlier, I kept a paper journal by my bed and would buy three-packs of Moleskin notebooks for brainstorming, sketching and jotting things down. What happened?

Over the course of the last four or five years, myriads of little computers found their way into my life. Bit by bit, my professional and creative existence made the transition to an entirely digital universe. At my old job managing digital publishing for a newspaper, the iPad soon replaced my spiral notebook in meetings. Then I left the print world to work on the Internet full-time. I could even sign my freelance contracts with my finger on an iPad.

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5 Things Entrepreneurs Can Learn From Art Students

via blog.crowdspring.com

My younger son is a high school senior this year and I find myself in awe of his ability to manage an wildly complex and demanding existence. First semester of senior year is an overwhelming time – college visits and applications to schedule and manage, final rounds of SATs and ACTs to prepare for, a full load of honors and AP classes to cope with, and an incredibly active social life to conduct. On top of all of that, he is a musician and a serious visual artist.

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Beat College Debt

via forbes.com

You don't have to be swallowed up by the B.A. debt maelstrom. Plan ahead. Educate yourself frugally. Here are 12 steps to education solvency.

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Unlocking Your Passion as a Student

via studentguidewebdesign.com

esigning is a mindset first, and a skillset second. I love it when I find the designer’s mindset in people – it gets me excited. They’ll identify the typeface before they read the word, their favorite genre of music is “anything that is good”, and they never fail to mention how much they love or hate the packaging of a product. The world desperately needs those kinds of people.

I’m not going to sugarcoat it – you in an industry that is both challenging and competitive. If you want to survive, you need to be skilled at more than just design; you need to understand the arts of communication, branding, psychology, marketing, and more. Above all, I implore you to guard yourself carefully. I have seen talented people get put in a box, and have the creativity pulled right out of them. That designer’s mind that you have – never lose it. It goes beyond your ability to create a nice website or logo. Designers are the innovators, the artists, the doers; the ones who analyze a problem and feel compelled to fix it. That creative energy is so valuable, and deserves to be recognized.

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Unlocking Your Passion as a Student: The Wonderful Mind of a Designer

via studentguidewebdesign.com

Designing is a mindset first, and a skillset second. I love it when I find the designer’s mindset in people – it gets me excited. They’ll identify the typeface before they read the word, their favorite genre of music is “anything that is good”, and they never fail to mention how much they love or hate the packaging of a product. The world desperately needs those kinds of people.

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Best Laptops for College Students

via inspirationfeed.com

In college, one essential tool in getting work done is a laptop. It’s a lifesaver in countless situations. You’ll need one in case you forgot to make some changes in your presentation. You’ll need one in case you need to look something up for your homework. There are countless situations where a laptop comes in handy in a classroom setting.

The question is though, what should you choose? Well, that depends on what kind of laptop user you are. There are plenty of laptops out there, and many can do plenty of stuff. Believe it or not, some people still might think it’s a good idea to buy a desktop at this point and time. Saving money and getting twice the power for the same price as a laptop sounds great, however mobility is the number one necessary in college.

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What Type of Learner Are You? [Infographic]

via hongkiat.com

Do you remember how you used to do your revisions in school and after? Which way was the most effective for you? Do you commit everything to memory, use mindmaps, make a recording of your teacher or lecturer’s lessons or carry around note cards to read on the way to school and back? Well, it turns out that the way one student studies may differ from the way a classmate does because there are different styles of learning we are individually adept for.

There are essentially four types:

visual learners,

auditory learners,

read and write learners, and

kinesthetics learners.

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MIT Kids Think They've Solved How To Get Rid Of Nuclear Waste

via businessinsider.com

The House voted yesterday to restore funding to Nevada's Yucca Mountain nuclear waste storage facility, the latest chapter in the decades-long debate over how to dispose of used fuel rods.

But a couple of grad students at MIT, along with a third MIT alum-turned VC, may have a viable solution to getting rid of nuclear waste.

Last fall, Leslie Dewan and Mark Massie unveiled their vision, called the Waste-Annihilating Molten Salt Reactor, at a TED-sponsored talk.

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How robotic technology is helping students [infographic]

via holykaw.alltop.com

Education technology is a crucial element of the modern classroom, with interactive technologies such as blogs, wikis, mobile devices, whiteboards and more gaining prominence. It’s not surprising that robots might not be far behind. A new project at the Korea Institute of Science and Technology is using $100 million in grants and over 300 researchers to build and deploy an army of robots to deliver English instruction to South Korean school children.

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A day in the life of a college student [infographic]

via holykaw.alltop.com

From going to class, balancing studying, and socializing, maintaining relationships and dealing with financial burdens, today's college student has a great deal on his mind. Take a look at just some of the issues college students may be concerned with on a daily basis.

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MIT Students Play Tetris with a Building! - Video

Students of MIT took over building 54 on campus (also called The “Green Building“) for the Earth and Planetary Sciences department last Friday to turn the building into a playable Tetris game. They even used a console with controls to be able to move, rotate, and drop blocks.

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Infographic: The United States of Student Debt

via mint.com

What was once considered “good debt” is quickly spiraling out of control. Borrowers in the United States have an estimated $1 trillion in student debt, leaving many experts speculating about whether or not this will be the next bubble to burst.

While the high figure reflects the entire country, some individual states are faring better than others.

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Books for Graphic Design Students

via pixel77.com

Most Graphic Design students fuel their creativity through inspirational materials. They usually seek for a good guide to help bring forth ideas for a given project. For most of them, graphic design books are the guide in learning the course that they are taking up. It keeps them focused on the principles that they need to master in order to fulfill their objectives.

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9 Ways Students Can Use Social Media to Boost Their Careers

via mashable.com

If you’re a Generation X-er or older, you likely use social media to cut it in the real world. You may also use social networks for personal reasons, but it’s always with the understanding that you’re a professional.

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Survey: 81 percent of teachers think tablets help students

via technolog.msnbc.msn.com

Since Apple announced that it's getting into the digital textbook business, there's been a lot of talk about tablets in the classroom. Do they belong there — and can they help students?

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6 Charts About The Future Of Learning

via businessinsider.com

This past summer, the Pew Research Center published a report on the "Digital Revolution and Higher Education." The whole report is worth a read, but we're drawn to the charts. Here are a few.

In these, only 15% of college presidents said that most of their students have taken a class online. But half think that 10 years from now, most students will take classes online.

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Clever Art Viral Advertising - Know The Warning Signs

via topdesignmag.com

College for Creative Studies launched a viral campaign on all social media channels with an ironic message to every parent who can’t understand art. “1 in 5 teenagers will experiment with art” seems a very dramatic idea, almost as bad as drugs but when you realize that it’s about art, design or sculpting, it will make you laugh.

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